On 2017 Aug 14, David Mage commented:

Hauck et al., prepared an interesting report on Sudden Unexpected Infant Death (SUID) and priorities for research to explain it. They state in the very first sentences of their introduction that 25 years ago, research into SIDS led to a ‘breakthrough’ which identified that “infants who slept on their stomachs were significantly more likely to die of SIDS than infants who slept on their backs [1].” Breakthrough? Schmakethrough!

Almost 75 years ago, Harald Abramson [2] published a proscription against the daytime practice of placing the infant in the prone position for sleep – unless constantly guarded. “The practice should, furthermore, be entirely done away with at night.” Fortunately, my thesis professor taught me the importance of reading the references of references to prevent such oversights when a blind eye is turned to the past literature. Reference 20 [Gilbert et al.] of their first reference [1] [Horne et al.] cites the Abramson 1944 paper.

1. Horne RSC, Hauck FR, Moon RY. Sudden infant death syndrome and advice for safe sleeping. BMJ 2015;350:h1989 doi: 10.1136/bmj.h1989

2. Abramson H. Accidental mechanical suffocation in infants. The Journal of Pediatrics 1944;25:404-413.

On 2017 Aug 14, David Mage commented:

Hauck et al., prepared an interesting report on Sudden Unexpected Infant Death (SUID) and priorities for research to explain it. They state in the very first sentences of their introduction that 25 years ago, research into SIDS led to a ‘breakthrough’ which identified that “infants who slept on their stomachs were significantly more likely to die of SIDS than infants who slept on their backs [1].” Breakthrough? Schmakethrough!

Almost 75 years ago, Harald Abramson [2] published a proscription against the daytime practice of placing the infant in the prone position for sleep – unless constantly guarded. “The practice should, furthermore, be entirely done away with at night.” Fortunately, my thesis professor taught me the importance of reading the references of references to prevent such oversights when a blind eye is turned to the past literature. Reference 20 [Gilbert et al.] of their first reference [1] [Horne et al.] cites the Abramson 1944 paper.

1. Horne RSC, Hauck FR, Moon RY. Sudden infant death syndrome and advice for safe sleeping. BMJ 2015;350:h1989 doi: 10.1136/bmj.h1989

2. Abramson H. Accidental mechanical suffocation in infants. The Journal of Pediatrics 1944;25:404-413.