Prematurity, maternal smoking, sleeping position & SIDS 

Professor Anne Greenough and her team at Kings College Hospital, London are investigating how maternal smoking during pregnancy affects breathing control and arousability from sleep in premature babies, and what differences are seen when babies are sleeping on their fronts or on their backs. 

Babies will be studied both before and three months after discharge. Recordings will be made of the way in which the babies breathe, if they have significant breathing pauses, their ability to arouse from sleep and the level of oxygen in their blood when slept on their back and front.  At the end of each period of sleep, the babies' strength of breathing and their ability to respond to stale air (carbon dioxide) will be assessed. 

Further analysis will then show whether sleep position can help explain differences found between infants of smoking and non-smoking mothers. The results may lead us to understand why there is a higher rate of SIDS in prematurely born infants of smoking mothers, particularly those nursed on their backs, and then help us decide how to lower the risk of SIDS for this group of babies.

 

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