October is SIDS, Pregnancy and Infancy Loss Month

 

                                                                            - Original graphic by Anna Sargent

October is Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) Awareness Month, a time to educate parents, grandparents, caregivers, and family members about the risk factors associated with SIDS.

On November 23, 2001, my family suffered the devastating loss of my grandson, Brian K. Sargent, to SIDS. He was six weeks old. SIDS Awareness is a personal cause to our family and we hope to be able to comfort other families and to make parents and caregivers aware in hopes of prevention.

Facts about SIDS in the Washington, DC Area:

• Infant mortality rate is 15 deaths per 1,000 live births (twice the national rate of 7.1)
• SIDS rate is also double the national rate (approximately 120 per 100,000 live births each year)

In 2006:• 9 babies died from SIDS in DC
• 90 babies died in Virginia
• 64 babies died in Maryland

Terry Rainey, a resident of the DC Metropolitan area, said this about his experience of losing an infant son to SIDS:

“I lost my son Joe in November of 1996, and every day I feel the pain of that loss. There are no easy answers, just some very tough questions, when one faces such a tragedy. Through the help of family and friends, I have come to appreciate Joe's eight months of life as a gift. Also I greatly value the efforts of the SIDS Alliance in helping thousands of other parents who have lost loved ones. With the strides that have been made in SIDS awareness and research, I am hopeful that we will see the day that no parent will lose a child to SIDS.”

 

What groups are most at risk for SIDS?

Babies who are placed to sleep on their stomachs or sides are at higher risk for SIDS than babies who are placed on their backs to sleep. African-American babies are more than two times as likely to die of SIDS as Caucasian babies. American-Indian/Alaska Native babies are nearly three times as likely to die of SIDS as Caucasian babies.

The preliminary infant mortality rate for 2007 was 6.77 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, a 1.2 percent increase from the 2006 rate of 6.69, though not considered statistically significant. Birth defects were the leading cause of infant death in 2007, followed by disorders related to preterm birth and low birth weight. Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) was the third leading cause of infant death in the United States. -Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and Sudden Unexpected Infant Death (SUID): Reducing the Risk
Follow these tips to reduce the risk of SIDS for infants:
Positioning

• Babies should always sleep on their back.
• Place baby on his/her back to sleep at night time and naptime.
• Babies shouldn’t sleep on their side. They may roll to face down position.

Cribs

• Every baby should sleep in his/her own crib.
• Place baby on a firm mattress in a safety approved crib.
• Remove all fluffy and loose bedding from the sleep area. The only thing in the crib should be the baby.
• Make sure baby’s head and face stay uncovered during sleep.
• Use blanket sleepers instead of blankets during colder months.

Room sharing

• Babies from birth to age 6 months should sleep in the same room with their parents.
• Babies should not sleep on the same sleep surface with their parents.
• Bring the baby into your bed for cuddling and feeding, but return the baby to his/her crib when you are ready to go back to sleep.

Other tips

• Temperature in home should be 68-72 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter and 70-85 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer.
• Don’t let baby get too warm during sleep.
• Use pacifiers at naptime and bedtime during the first year, but not during the first month for breast-fed babies. -Children's National Medical Center Washington, DC © 2009

First Candle/SIDS Alliance is a national nonprofit health organization uniting parents, caregivers and researchers nationwide with government, business and community service groups to advance infant health and survival. With help from a national network of member and partner organizations, First Candle is working to increase public participation and support in the fight against infant mortality.

Important Resources for parents and caregivers:

The Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Foundation of Washington

Follow SIDS Resource Center on Twitter

National Healthy Start Association Toolkit Resource Center Web site at the National Center for Education in Maternal and Child Health, Georgetown University © Georgetown University

U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission

Rise in Infant Suffocations Renews Debate On Bed-Sharing By Rob Stein ©2009 The Washington Post Company

Why is SIDS More Common in African American Populations?

Halo Sleep Sack -The Safer Way to Sleep®

Air Force Veteran Invents SIDS Prevention Device © Copyright 2003-2009 I-Newswire

Hospital will promote SIDS awareness in October © 2009 The-Dispatch.com

Back to Sleep Campaign and the Healthy Child Care America Campaign. © AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS

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                                                                  Brian K. Sargent

 

Of things unseene how canst thou deeme aright,
Then answered the righteous Artegall ,
Sith thou misdeem'st so much of things in sight?
What though the sea with waves continuall
Doe eate the earth, it is no more at all:
Ne is the earth the lesse, or loseth ought,
For whatsoeuer from one place doth fall,
Is with the tide unto an other brought:
For there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought.

-The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser
Book V Canto II stanza 39

Orignially written and published in 2009 for the Examiner.com site

A reflection on loss - Life is loss

"He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness."  – Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

I think about loss a great deal. Some days, thoughts of loss consume me. And though thoughts of loss can be incredibly sad, they aren’t as depressing as they may seem. There are many degrees and levels of loss. I am one of those people who develops very strong attachments, so loss has been especially hard for me all of my life. Many people feel their losses much more deeply than others, but loss is a universal experience that every person on the planet has experienced. No one gets through life without loss.

When I think about loss, I grieve for lost loved ones and lost years. I think about beloved pets that have gone on. I mourn lost friendships, ruined relationships, former jobs and coworkers, and lost belongings. I wonder about people I haven’t seen for years and how they were once a part of my life… and now are not.

I also feel for friends and the losses they have experienced, the struggles they have endured, and the pain of dealing with disappointments and endings. My loved ones and I have shared many losses from death, divorce, change, and growth. In truth, nothing really stays the same for very long, and inevitably people and things get lost along the way.

"Who except the gods can live time through forever without any pain?"  - Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound

Sometimes I think of my younger self, when I was raising small children. The world seemed very small then and I had my whole life ahead of me. Since those days, there have been small losses and unbearable tragedies to bear. Losses we never expected nor could have imagined. And yet, we survived. A very wise therapist once told me something I will never forget. “Life is loss.” I have thought of those three tiny words so very often, and the incredible weight in their truth. Yes, life is loss, and once you understand the inevitability of that fact- you are able to find the lesson and the hope you need to accept it.

Sorrow prepares you for joy.

It violently sweeps everything
out of your house, so that new
joy can find space to enter.

It shakes the yellow leaves
from the bough of your heart,
so that fresh, green leaves can
grown in their place.

It pulls up rotten roots,
so that new roots hidden
beneath have room to grow.

Whatever sorrow shakes from
your heart, far better things
will take their place.
- Rumi

Change is inevitable, but it isn’t always easy to understand or accept. I don’t just mourn the loss of life of friends and family. I also feel the incredible loss of lost time and wasted moments that can never be regained.

And although I think on loss a great deal, I am not hopeless nor am I depressed. I have come to understand and accept it; I live with it, and I deal with my losses- great and small. I do not allow loss to consume me. It is a teacher and a guide. My losses remind me of who I am and where I have been; and my losses guide my future decisions and choices. I do not dwell in misery or despair. I accept that loss is a huge part of life, but it is NOT every part of life.

"... even out of unspeakable grief, beautiful things take wing."  - A.R. Torres, The Lessons of Loss

The pain of losing people and things, that I have truly loved, reminds me to cherish the people and things I still have right now. Loss has taught me to appreciate what I still have and what is yet to come.

September 11th recollections

It is difficult to capture the feeling that is in my heart today. There is an aching stillness, a hurt that is hard to express with words. I can still remember so vividly the shock, the rush of panic, the feeling of despair and hopelessness that morning and into the next few months afterward. Even after ten long years, and another lifetime of new memories that have happened since, the events and images of that day are still burned into my soul… and it still hurts.

"For me and my family personally, September 11 was a reminder that life is fleeting, impermanent, and uncertain. Therefore, we must make use of every moment and nurture it with affection, tenderness, beauty, creativity, and laughter." - Deepak Chopra, M.D.

Life truly is impermanent and uncertain. Each day is a gift, and after September 11, 2001, that lesson became very meaningful and real. Everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing at the moment the planes hit in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania.  I was working downtown in DC at that time, and I took the metro from the Pentagon station every morning and then again in the afternoon. I had just arrived at work when the first plane hit one of the towers in New York City. It had to be an accident, I thought. Then the second plane and I knew. I knew and in an instant everything I had once known and believed was shattered.

How could this have happened? At that point, I was in shock, but then when they announced that the Pentagon had been hit, my world came crashing down. My sister taught at a school just a few miles away. My daughter’s school was within a few miles and my parents lived less than 5 miles from the impact. What were my sons doing, thinking, and how were they reacting? Suddenly, I desperately wanted and needed to know where and how all my friends and loved ones were! And I couldn’t. My mother had flown to Germany the previous day and she was agonizing over what had happened. And there I was, in the middle of L Street, trapped and unable to move as the world seemed to be crumbling around me.

"You can be sure that the American spirit will prevail over this tragedy." - Colin Powell

Mercifully, all of my loved ones were safe and well that day. In a matter of hours, we were able to speak to one another and be together in our horror and grief. But life was never the same. Not for our country, our state, our city or the little world within our hearts and minds. We had lost innocence and a belief that nothing like that could touch us. But it also brought us together and would steel us against future loss and tragedy. It would help us to get through other family tragedies which were to come. It gave us perspective and strength. Rebuilding the mangled buildings that the terrorists had sought to bring to ruin was a reminder to us that when faced with destruction in our own lives, you rebuild. You don’t leave broken, shattered ruins for your enemies to gloat over. You pick yourselves up and you begin again.

“Time is passing. Yet, for the United States of America, there will be no forgetting September the 11th. We will remember every rescuer who died in honor. We will remember every family that lives in grief. We will remember the fire and ash, the last phone calls, the funerals of the children" - George W. Bush

My heart still breaks for those who lost their lives, their loved ones, their sanity and peace of mind during those terrible attacks and the days, months, and years which have followed. The Soldiers who have died fighting the wars which followed, and knew what they were up against after September 11^th are a testimony to the incredible bravery and passionate love of our way of life and our deep desire to preserve it for future generations. They, too, inspire me and remind me of the cost of freedom and liberty. Their sacrifice, and that of their families, reminds me to honor and cherish every day and to live with a sense of honor and dignity and to work towards being a good, decent and productive citizen and human being.

Today is a day to remember and reflect, but each and every day is an opportunity to honor those who lost their lives and those who continue to sacrifice for others. Let the spirit and message of September 11^th be with us perpetually and mindfully. Let it live and let it grow within us.