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FAQ's Concerning Crib Death:

QUESTIONS:

1.) What is crib death?

2.) How can a parent prevent crib death?

3.) How reliable is this research?

4.) What does Dr Sprott say about orthodox crib death prevention advice?

5.) What about the theory that crib death has a number of causes (the so-called "multifactorial" theory)?

6.) So what is the explanation for the rising rate of crib death from one sibling to the next?

7.) What about the claim that vaccination causes crib death?

8.) Could the wrapping of the mattress in polyethylene cause a baby to sweat or overheat?

9.) How can I learn more about the ‘Campaign to Prevent Crib Death’?

ANSWERS:

1.) What is crib death?
Crib death is the most common cause of death among infants 1 month to 1 year of age. Ninety percent of all crib deaths occur among babies under 6 months of age. In most cases of crib death, the baby has been put down to sleep in his/her crib and later found lifeless, with no sign of illness or physical struggle.

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2.) How can a parent prevent crib death?
Many parents may be unaware of a 100% successful crib death prevention campaign which a New Zealand scientist, Dr Jim Sprott, has been running in New Zealand since late 1994.

Dr Sprott states with certainty that the cause of crib death has been discovered: it is caused by very toxic nerve gases which can be generated from mattresses and certain other bedding used in babies' cribs. These toxic nerve gases are generated when compounds of phosphorus, arsenic and/or antimony in the bedding combine with household fungus which commonly grows in bedding.

These gases (which are all anticholinesterase agents), when inhaled by a baby or absorbed through the baby’s skin in a lethal dose, shut down the baby’s central nervous system, stopping breathing and then heart function. Thus the cause of crib death is not medical – it is the result of environmental poisoning. The baby can be fatally poisoned without waking and without physical struggle.

The solution is to prevent exposure of babies to the gases by wrapping mattresses in accordance with a specified protocol and ensuring that bedding used on top of the wrapped mattresses is not capable of the gas generation concerned.

Since late 1994 mattress wrapping has been publicized nationwide in New Zealand, and during that time an estimated 130,000 babies have slept on wrapped mattresses. Prior to the commencement of mattress-wrapping, New Zealand had the highest crib death rate in the world (2.1 deaths per 1000 live births). Following the adoption of mattress-wrapping the New Zealand crib death rate has fallen by 56% - and there has been no reported crib death among those babies who have slept on correctly wrapped mattresses. Among the ethnic group most likely to wrap babies' mattresses (New Zealand Europeans) the crib death rate has fallen by around 80%.

These major reductions in New Zealand crib death rates cannot be attributed to orthodox crib death prevention advice (e.g. face-up sleeping). There has been no material change in that advice in New Zealand since 1992.

Orthodox crib death research organizations dispute Dr Sprott’s and Mr Richardson’s findings – however, no research has disproved the toxic gas theory for crib death. In actual fact, the toxic gas theory explains every risk factor which is known to be associated with crib death.

A considerable amount of research relating to the toxic gas theory has been published in peer-reviewed medical and other scientific journals. In fact, mattress-wrapping for crib death prevention is supported by wider research than supported the introduction of various items of orthodox crib death prevention advice (including face-up sleeping).

According to Dr Sprott (who has a PhD in chemistry and is expert in the gas generation concerned), every step in the toxic gas theory for crib death has
been proved. And the nine-year New Zealand experience provides practical proof that mattress-wrapping prevents crib death.

Some orthodox crib death researchers say that crib death rates in various countries have fallen without the introduction of mattress-wrapping – and they have. But there is a crucial difference: many babies have died of crib death where parents followed orthodox crib death prevention advice; but there has been no reported crib death on mattresses wrapped in accordance with the mattress-wrapping protocol.

Unlike orthodox crib death prevention advice, mattress-wrapping has a 100% success record in crib death prevention.

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3.) How reliable is this research?
In 2002 a German environmental medicine practitioner, Dr Hannes Kapuste, published the statistical results of the New Zealand mattress-wrapping campaign: "Giftige Gase im Kinderbett" ("Toxic Gases in Infants' Beds”), Zeitschrift fuer Umweltmedizin (2002, No. 44) 18-20.

The "p" factor for the mattress-wrapping intervention was calculated by Dr Kapuste (in collaboration with the University of Munich) as being:

p = less than 1.9 x 10(exp minus 22)

It is usual in medical circles to regard a "p" of less than 0.01 as sound proof of a scientific proposition; and if the "p" is less than 0.001, that is regarded as virtually certain proof.

1.9 x 10(exp minus 22) (the "p" factor for mattress-wrapping) can be written as: 0.000,000,000,000,000,000,000,19

Put another way, the statistical proof that mattress-wrapping prevents crib death is one billion billion times the level of proof which medical researchers generally regard as constituting certain proof of a scientific proposition. Not surprisingly, therefore, Dr Kapuste described the toxic gas theory for crib death and mattress-wrapping for crib death prevention as having "overwhelming reliability".

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4.) What does Dr Sprott say about orthodox crib death prevention advice?
1) Don't smoke around your baby.

Recent history refutes any suggestion that smoking causes crib death, says Dr Sprott. Smoking was very common in Britain in the 1930s and 1940s, but crib death was virtually non-existent. Smoking is prevalent in present-day Russia and Japan, but the crib death rates are low. No cause-and-effect relationship between smoking and crib death has been established – they are socio-economic parallels. Put another way, smoking is more common among poorer people, and so is crib death. But it does not follow that smoking is therefore a crib death risk factor.

2) Don't bedshare with your baby if you also smoke or smoked during pregnancy.

Misleading advice, says Dr Sprott. The risk posed by bedsharing does not arise from smoking – it arises from the mattress. Adults' mattresses very frequently contain the same chemicals and fungi as babies' mattresses, and therefore they
can generate the same toxic gas/es. (For physiological reasons adults are not put at risk by this gas generation in mattresses.)

3) Sleep your baby with feet to the foot of the crib.

According to Dr Sprott, this practice affords no protection whatsoever against crib death. Any area on an unwrapped mattress where a baby sleeps is a potential source of toxic gas, since that is the area which becomes warm and moist (promoting the fungal activity which can cause gas generation).

4) Sleep your baby face up.

Face-up sleeping is a partial preventive against crib death. This is because the gases which cause crib death are more dense than air. They diffuse away towards the floor, and therefore a baby sleeping face up is less likely to inhale them.

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5.) What about the theory that crib death has a number of causes (the so-called "multifactorial" theory)?
Clearly wrong, says Dr Sprott. At this point he draws attention to a highly significant piece of information about crib death: the crib death risk rises from the first baby in a family to the second, and rises again from the second baby to the third, and so on. Babies of solo parents have a very high crib death rate.

Dr Sprott explains that the rising rate of crib death from one sibling to the next destroys every medical and physiological theory for the cause of crib death.

* For example, some researchers think crib death is caused by babies re-breathing their exhaled carbon dioxide. However, all babies exhale a similar amount of CO2, regardless of whether they are first, second or later babies. Therefore, the rising rate of crib death from one sibling to the next refutes the CO2 theory.

* Some researchers think crib death is related to the size of babies' airways. However, for this theory to be valid would require second babies' airways to be smaller than those of first babies; and third babies' airways to be smaller than those of second babies; and so on. Clearly, therefore, the airways theory
is wrong, because the size of babies' airways is not related to birth order.

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6.) So what is the explanation for the rising rate of crib death from one sibling to the next?
Crib death is caused by gases generated in mattresses - and many parents re-use mattresses from one baby to the next. If a mattress contains any compounds of phosphorus, arsenic and/or antimony and certain houshold fungi have become established in the mattress during previous use by another baby, generation of toxic gas commences sooner and in greater volume when the mattress is re-used.

This accounts for the rising rate of crib death from one sibling to the next. It also accounts for the very high crib death rate among babies of solo parents, who for economic reasons are more likely to sleep their babies on previously used mattresses which they have acquired secondhand.

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7.) What about the claim that vaccination causes crib death?
Vaccination is not the cause of crib death – however, various studies demonstrate that vaccination is a crib death risk factor. The way in which vaccination increases the risk of crib death is as follows:

Any circumstance which reduces the efficiency of a baby's immune system, or which causes the baby to have a higher than normal body temperature, will make the baby more likely to succumb to the gaseous poisoning which causes crib death. If the temperature in a baby’s crib increases by 3°C (say from 37°C to 40°C [98.6°F to 104°F]), the rate of gas generation increases by 10 to 20 times.

Since, therefore, vaccination can adversely affect the immune system (temporarily) and increase body temperature (due to the minor infection caused by the vaccine), it can make a baby more susceptible to the cause of crib death.

However, if the baby's mattress is correctly wrapped for crib death prevention and the correct bedding used, there is no risk of crib death associated with vaccination, since the wrapping prevents exposure to the gas/es concerned. Therefore, the fact that a baby sleeping on a correctly wrapped mattress has been recently vaccinated becomes irrelevant as regards crib death. The baby may experience the common physical symptoms following vaccination, but crib death will not ensue.

An Australian researcher, Dr Viera Scheibner, has stated that half of all crib deaths are caused by vaccination. However, this assertion is clearly refuted by crib death epidemiology in New Zealand, the USA and Japan. For example:

(a) The supposed link between crib death and vaccination is refuted by Dr Scheibner herself when she states that the USA is the nation most committed to vaccination. In that case, why has the USA not had a very high death rate in comparison with some other countries? In 1994 the US crib death rate was only half that of New Zealand; yet both countries had a high vaccination rate.

EXPLANATION: Unlike in the USA, the vast majority of New Zealand crib mattresses are fabric-covered and babies often sleep on sheepskins (allowing exposure to toxic gas/es).

(b) There are wide disparities between the crib death rates of the three major ethnic groups in New Zealand. The groups who vaccinate the least (Maori and Pacific Island) have the highest crib death rates. The Maori crib death rate is around ten times higher than the European crib death rate; yet the Europeans have a far higher vaccination rate. If Dr Scheibner were correct, the reverse would be the situation.

EXPLANATION: Many European parents wrap their babies' mattresses and so prevent exposure to toxic gas/es. Therefore, the fact that these babies have been vaccinated does not make them more susceptible to the gaseous poisoning which causes crib death, since they are not exposed to the gas/es in the first place.

(c) Dr Scheibner states that the vaccination policy in Japan (where babies are vaccinated at a later age than in other countries) is the reason for the historically low crib death rate in that country. How then does she account for the fact that the vaccination policy in Japan has not changed but the crib death rate in Japan is now rising?

EXPLANATION: Japanese parents are moving from using traditional Japanese cotton futons (which cannot generate the toxic gases concerned) towards using western-style mattresses. Therefore, it stands to reason that the crib death rate is rising irrespective of the fact that the vaccination policy has not changed.

(d) Dr Scheibner's conclusions are, therefore, disproved by the Japanese experience and by a comparison of crib death and vaccination rates between countries.

(e) The fact that vaccinated Australian babies were found to have died of crib death on the same day following vaccination as vaccinated US babies died of crib death does not advance Dr Scheibner's argument that vaccination causes crib death.

EXPLANATION: The rise in body temperature which occurs after vaccination peaks on a particular day following vaccination (a fact which has been known for decades). So vaccinated babies sleeping on unwrapped mattresses are most susceptible to crib death on the same day following vaccination.

As a matter of scientific logic, Dr Scheibner cannot say that vaccination causes half of all crib deaths. What her research shows is that half of all crib death babies have been recently vaccinated.

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8.) Could the wrapping of the mattress in polyethylene cause a baby to sweat or overheat?
If sweating/overheating occurs on a wrapped mattress, it is not caused by the polyethylene wrap. As a matter of thermodynamics, the layer of polyethylene used to wrap a mattress is so thin in relation to the thickness of the mattress that it has no measurable effect on the rate of heat transfer from the baby to the mattress itself. Put another way, the overheating is not caused by the
polyethylene wrap.

If sweating/overheating occurs on a wrapped mattress, it is the result of too much overbedding or too much clothing on the baby or overheating of the baby’s room.

Babies have a GREATER capacity than adults to retain their body heat, and LESS capacity than adults to cool themselves down. Therefore babies should be lightly dressed for sleep, and their required bedding is less than an adult requires to keep warm.

When sleeping in their cribs:

(a) Babies should sleep in loose baby gowns or pajamas;

(b) They should not sleep in any item of clothing which encloses their feet (such as a jumpsuit or socks) or which encloses their hands;

(c) They should not wear bonnets or helmets, since much of their body heat loss (which is essential) occurs via the head.

(d) It is fine to wrap a baby in a pure cotton diaper or other pure cotton sheeting.

In respect of bedding used on top of a baby:

(a) Babies should use no more than two pure wool or pure cotton overblankets;

(b) In a centrally-heated home, one pure wool or pure cotton overblanket may be sufficient.

The overnight temperature in a baby's room should not exceed 17-18° Celsius (63-65° F).

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9.) How can I learn more about the ‘Campaign to Prevent Crib Death’?

Email questions to barbcnm@babymattresscovers.com

Read Dr. Sprott’s book ‘The Cot Death Cover-Up?’. This book is available for purchase using our on-line order form or by e-mailing barbcnm@babymattresscovers.com .