Babies: 0 - 3 Months

Back-To-Sleep/SIDS/ADHD...

Okay, I have been doing some research on the internet, both about SIDS and about ADHD (Since my husband has it). While I always thought ADD and ADHD were just kids being uncontrolled, I saw firsthand what it does. My husband cannot for the life of him finish a project. He currently has five right now, none of which are past the 80% finish mark. He cannot focus on one thing either, he tries, but he can't. Anyways, this made me look around on the internet to see if ADHD was hereditary or not.

While doing so, I learned that babies who had slept on their back were diagnosed with ADD or ADHD more often than babies who didn't. The gist of many websites were that the babies who slept on their back were always in a lighter mode of sleep, they hardly ever went into the deep, neuron repairing sleep. This kinda made me sad because you either risk losing your child or risk having them have some sort of problem later on (ADD, ADHD, and Autism has been linked to back sleeping). Of course I would choose the latter for eternity if there was a choice. Just, it made me wish there was a way to combat SIDS and make sure our children are getting the rest they need to have healthy repairs to their fragile system.

Here are some links which I thought were interesting:

Dr. Park

A blog with some graphs and stuff.

I am no way saying I am not going to put my son on his back ever again. I am just thinking aloud here and am wondering if anyone else has looked into this as well? Your thoughts?

 
 
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Re: Back-To-Sleep/SIDS/ADHD...

  • well this makes sense to me.   The reason I say this is that when I put him on his back to sleep at night he sleeps 1-2 hours (he has slept up to 4 hours but that has happened 2 times since his arrival 7 weeks ago).   He is also very "twitchy" when he sleeps, I have tried swaddling him but he hates his hands/arms being tied down.  

    During the day we have a bassinet in our living room (where we spend most of our time) so I will lay him on his tummy for his naps and he seems to sleep deeper and more sound.  It is not unusual for him to sleep 3 hours.

    Of course like you I will not risk putting him on his tummy at night even though he does sleep in our room in his PNP.  

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  • I would say at least there is medication you can take and other things you can do for ADHD and ADD, I'll take that over SIDS risk..
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  • imagedhreczuck:
    ADHD and ADD, I'll take that over SIDS risk..

    I think any sane person would.

     
     
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  • I wonder if swaddling can mitigate some of the impact. We don't swaddle our LO and she has a harder time falling asleep on her back than on her side. I told our pedi that we usually put her to sleep on her side and she didn't express any concern about it.
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  • imageCrazyMary77:
    I wonder if swaddling can mitigate some of the impact. We don't swaddle our LO and she has a harder time falling asleep on her back than on her side. I told our pedi that we usually put her to sleep on her side and she didn't express any concern about it.


    It might work for some LO's but for our stubborn little boy he hates to have his hands and arms restricted so swaddling him does not work.

    I would NOT risk SIDS.   When I put him on his tummy during the day either I or our 10 year old daughter is in the room with him or walking by constantly.  I never leave him unattended.
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  • mnj05mnj05 member
    I haven't heard of any of this and as a teacher let me just say that there are so many kids diagnosed with ADD/ADHD that have no business being diagnosed with either. Of all the kids I've come across, at least 85 are not ADD/ADHD.

    I've always wondered about heredity too. DH's dad has ADD but neither DH or his brothers do.

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  • Yeah, he sleeps most of his naps on his stomach, but only if I am right there next to him writing papers or something. If I ever have to go out of the room, or if I am busy doing other things then I let him fall into a deep sleep on his stomach then turn him on his side or back.
     
     
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  • imagemnj05:
    I haven't heard of any of this and as a teacher let me just say that there are so many kids diagnosed with ADD/ADHD that have no business being diagnosed with either. Of all the kids I've come across, at least 85 are not ADD/ADHD. I've always wondered about heredity too. DH's dad has ADD but neither DH or his brothers do.

    That is another reason why I looked it up too because a long time ago I used to joke with my cousin that any child born after 92' seems to have ADD of some sort or on some type of calming medication. My cousin's first son had to be medicated and it was necessary, they tried diagnosing her other boys but they didn't have it. The teacher just complained to their mother a lot because they wouldn't stop interrupting, after some stricter discipline they stopped. My cousin blamed the cartoons now days, while I think otherwise..

     
     
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  • imageClandestineX:

    Okay, I have been doing some research on the internet, both about SIDS and about ADHD (Since my husband has it). While I always thought ADD and ADHD were just kids being uncontrolled, I saw firsthand what it does. My husband cannot for the life of him finish a project. He currently has five right now, none of which are past the 80% finish mark. He cannot focus on one thing either, he tries, but he can't. Anyways, this made me look around on the internet to see if ADHD was hereditary or not.

    While doing so, I learned that babies who had slept on their back were diagnosed with ADD or ADHD more often than babies who didn't. The gist of many websites were that the babies who slept on their back were always in a lighter mode of sleep, they hardly ever went into the deep, neuron repairing sleep. This kinda made me sad because you either risk losing your child or risk having them have some sort of problem later on (ADD, ADHD, and Autism has been linked to back sleeping). Of course I would choose the latter for eternity if there was a choice. Just, it made me wish there was a way to combat SIDS and make sure our children are getting the rest they need to have healthy repairs to their fragile system.

    Here are some links which I thought were interesting:

    Dr. Park

    A blog with some graphs and stuff.

    I am no way saying I am not going to put my son on his back ever again. I am just thinking aloud here and am wondering if anyone else has looked into this as well? Your thoughts?

    I know nothing about the ADHD link, but my son has autism and I've never once heard that sleeping on their back could cause this. I was under the impression it was something that happened during pregnancy as the brain is developing.


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  • Here is one of many links with citations with linking Autism to Back-to-sleep.

    Linky

     
     
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  • My first thought (admittedly without any research or reading the articles, just a gut reaction) is this - ADHD is a relatively new diagnosis in the medical world and the Back to Sleep campaign is as well.  I'm wondering if this is actually just more a coincidence because medical professionals started focusing more attention on both around the same time.
    Formerly known as elmoali :)

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  • Could it be a correlation vs causation issue? The back to sleep movement just happens to be at the same time as ADHD and Autism awareness?
  • imageRachel623:
    Could it be a correlation vs causation issue? The back to sleep movement just happens to be at the same time as ADHD and Autism awareness?

    Bingo.
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  • You really can't say that sleeping on the back caused the problem. While the whole light sleep thing makes perfect sense... could be that babies with ADHD are already prone to not going into deep sleep as part of the disorder.
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  • imagedhreczuck:
    I would say at least there is medication you can take and other things you can do for ADHD and ADD, I'll take that over SIDS risk..

    Same. 

  • imageelmoali:
    My first thought admittedly without any research or reading the articles, just a gut reaction is this ADHD is a relatively new diagnosis in the medical world and the Back to Sleep campaign is as well. nbsp;I'm wondering if this is actually just more a coincidence because medical professionals started focusing more attention on both around the same time.


    Completely agree.

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  • I work with special needs children. The resources that provide that information always make the 'evidence' sound more conclusive than it really is.  There are a lot of factors that go into the diagnosis of ADD, ADHD, and definitely autism.  My advice to you is not to worry! Lay your baby down to sleep in whatever way feels right to you.  Back sleeping is absolutely safer.  If your child becomes diagnosed with one of these things, it won't be because you put him on his back to sleep. 
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  • imageRachel623:
    Could it be a correlation vs causation issue? The back to sleep movement just happens to be at the same time as ADHD and Autism awareness?

    Yup, that's what I think too. In my educated opinion autism is something you are born with.  

  • I slept on my stomach as a child and have a pretty awful case of ADHD.
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  • Babies have slept on their stomachs for decades. Maybe your DH was a tummy sleeper.

    I follow PP's sentiment- I would rather have a different kid than my baby die of SIDS. This may be way off base, but Ive heard back to sleep is "causing" more autism because the babies with neurological differences that are more prone to autistic tendencies and SIDS are making it through infancy by sleeping on their backs. 

    My autistic siblings were born that way. There were no changes in environment from one to the next that anyone could detect. 2 turned out autistic and 1 didnt.  

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  • Correlation does not imply causation.

    Correlation does not imply causation.

    Correlation does not imply causation.

    The psych major in me would like to repeat that enough times for it to stick.

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  • imageJmeJme:
    Correlation does not imply causation. Correlation does not imply causation. Correlation does not imply causation. The psych major in me would like to repeat that enough times for it to stick.

    very true!  

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  • imageelmoali:
    My first thought (admittedly without any research or reading the articles, just a gut reaction) is this - ADHD is a relatively new diagnosis in the medical world and the Back to Sleep campaign is as well.  I'm wondering if this is actually just more a coincidence because medical professionals started focusing more attention on both around the same time.

    Definitely this.  I think people want to be able to find something "easy" to say caused their child's ADHD or autism etc ... but I dont' think there's going to be a nice easy answer like this.

    Also, if this correlation really had some grain of truth to it - don't you think it would be a little more talked about?  I definitely would need to see some actual studies to buy into this theory - not just blog posts with some statistics thrown in.

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  • imageelmoali:
    My first thought (admittedly without any research or reading the articles, just a gut reaction) is this - ADHD is a relatively new diagnosis in the medical world and the Back to Sleep campaign is as well.  I'm wondering if this is actually just more a coincidence because medical professionals started focusing more attention on both around the same time.

    This.  Correlation does not necessarily equal causation.  ADHD is a new diagnosis, and also very over-diagnosed, and there is much more of an awareness of autism these days, meaning it was previously going undiagnosed.

    Before too long babies learn to roll over into whatever position they feel comfortable in.  Any older babies I've seen generally roll onto their stomachs with their bums in the air to sleep.  I'm just wondering if spending the first couple months of life sleeping on their backs could really cause adhd/autism.

     Just from my personal experience, my son (8 weeks) is put to bed on his back, and sleeps quite well (up twice a night on average, but always with a 5.5-6 hour stretch of sleep at the beginning of the night).  We also often put him to sleep with a pacifier, but it gets spit out within the first half hour.

     One thing to consider with ADHD (not that I am in any way an expert, just my experience with friends/kids I've babysat in the past), milder forms are greatly improved by the right kind of structure and lots of physical activity.

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