Children don't know how to stand up until the day they learn to do it. In the same way they do not know how to climb the cradle or the moises until a good day they try to do it and they get it. This means that the place where the children are should always be as safe as possible, since in the United States it has been shown that Each year, about 10,000 children under two years of age come to the emergency room with injuries caused by being in their cribs, playgrounds and bassinet.
Researchers at Columbus Nationwide Children's Hospital in Ohio have concluded that Most of these injuries happen when children try to get out and fall to the ground.
In the words of Gary A Smith, professor of pediatrics and director of the Hospital's Injury and Policy Research Center:
Most surprising was the number of crib-related injuries that were treated in hospital emergency services. It seems that most of these falls are due to children trying to climb out of the crib and fall to the ground.
Most times, because of the weight of the head in relation to the rest of your body, children usually fall head first. If we also take into account that many children do not have the ability to dampen the fall, either with their hands, or by turning their bodies, falls can lead to serious injuries.
For this reason it is important to know the abilities of children and to know that the more they move, the greater the risk of an accident and the greater emphasis parents should make in minimizing the risks.
According to the Commission for the Safety of Consumer Products of the USA. UU., When it begins to be at risk parents should lower the height of the mattress in the crib so that there is at least 68 cm between the top of the mattress and the top of the railing and change the crib for the bed when the child measures 89-90 cm, with its corresponding railing.
For the study, Smith's team used data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System between 1990 and 2008. In those 18 years, about 182,000 children under two years old who had been taken to the emergency room for crib injuries were identified, bassinet or playground.
Breaking down the accidents according to where the babies slept they saw that 83.2% of injuries were related to cribs, 12.6% in playgrounds and 4.2% in bassinet. This is an overwhelming logic, because those who sleep in a bassinet are usually small babies who move less and have less ability to climb, those who play in playgrounds do it during the day, when there is usually a more or less outstanding adult ( and perhaps the parks have a greater distance between the ground and the end of the protections) and because those who sleep in the crib do so when parents also sleep and are not watching (and because most children sleep in a crib) .
Faced with this situation, cots as safe as possible and minimize any possible danger are advised, even those things that could be related to asphyxiation deaths, such as bedding, stuffed animals or bumpers.
Regarding sleeping with parents, Smith commented that "putting the baby together with the parents increases their risk of suffocation", which I disagree in part, because if parents take into account a series of recommended measures, the family bed, not adapted to children, can be transformed into a totally safe place. However, if they are not taken into account, there may be risks that make sleeping with a child dangerous. On the other hand the logical thing would be that sleeping with parents the falls of children trying to leave also decrease, because the need to leave where they are looking for a father or mother disappears.
In any case, a well-fitted approved crib with little or nothing on the mattress that could be dangerous will be a safe option as long as we respect the distance between the mattress and the top of the railing.
