A nine-month investigation of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s files of death certificates by Scripps Howard News Service uncovered chaotic and wildly inaccurate medical diagnoses of sudden infant deaths throughout America. Some states routinely label nearly all such deaths as the result of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Others report most deaths are from “cause or causes unknown.” A few find elevated rates of accidental suffocation.
The study found that states with multiple levels of Child Death Review boards are much more likely to detect infant homicides and accidental asphyxiations than states with little or no such review. The study also disclosed that a small, but growing number of coroners are reporting that most sudden infant deaths are actually avoidable accidents due to parents co-sleeping with their infants or placing them in unsafe sleeping environments like sofas or adult beds.