Re-inhaling carbon dioxide has been hypothesised to contribute to SIDS. By allowing the pooling of carbon dioxide gas around an infant's nose and mouth during sleep, combined with inadequate ventilation in the room, may increase the risk of SIDS, the authors suggest.
To see if improving a room's ventilation could reduce the risk, Dr. De-Kun Li and colleagues conducted a population-based study involving 185 infants who died of SIDS and 312 infants with characteristics similar to those of the SIDS infants. Data on fan use and other aspects of the sleep environment were obtained through interviews with the infants' mothers.
Using a fan during sleep was linked with a 72 percent reduction in SIDS risk, Li and associates from Kaiser Permanente Northern California in Oakland report.
Further study showed that the benefits of using a fan were most pronounced in "adverse" sleep environments, such as a warm rather than a cool room, reducing the risk of SIDS by 94 percent.
Fans also reduced the impact of known risk factors for SIDS. For infants who slept on their stomach or their side, rather than on their back (the position recommended by the "Back to Sleep" campaign that started in 1994), a fan in the room reduced the risk by about 86 percent. Likewise, the risk was reduced by about 85 percent for infants who shared a bed with a person other than a parent.
The authors found that fan use only reduced the risk of SIDS in infants who were not using pacifiers. Prior research has linked pacifier use with a decreased risk of SIDS, the report indicates.
Although the importance of putting infants to sleep on their backs is the "paramount" message for parents, the use of a fan in the room of a sleeping infant appears to offer an easily available means of further reducing SIDS risk that can be readily accepted by parents and caretakers of various social and cultural backgrounds, Li's team concludes.