Wednesday October 8, 2008 (foodconsumer.org) -- In the so called scientific community, you can read all types of research articles on sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), but remember that not all are equally convincing.

A new study published in the October issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine claimed that using a fan in the room where a baby sleep may reduce the baby's risk of SIDS by as much as 72 percent.  

The study was conducted by researchers at Kaiser Permanente Northern California, Oakland and the University of California in Berkeley.

For the study, De-Kun Li and colleagues compared 185 infants who were confirmed to have suffered SIDS and 312 randomly selected infants matched for the residence, maternal race/ethnicity and age.

Li and colleagues found fan use during sleep was linked with a 72 percent reduced risk of SIDS. The risk reduction seemed to be more significant in adverse sleep environments.

The researchers said in warmer rooms, using a fan could reduce the risk by 94 percent compared to a reduction of merely 23 percent in rooms at cooler temperatures.

"Fan use may be an effective intervention for further decreasing SIDS risk in infants in adverse sleep environments," the researchers concluded.

Sudden infant death syndrome is the leading cause of death among infants aged 1 to 12 months, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  

At least 4,500 infants die from SIDS each year.   By definition, the cause of SIDS is unknown although speculations as to how SIDS infants die have gone rampant.

A reader posted a comment in response to the report on the study by Washington Post on the newspaper website questioning the credibility of the study.   He/She pointed out that SIDS occur often in the fall and winter when fan use is not common.

From what the researchers said in their study report and if the reader’s claim is accurate, it could be that using a fan is a marker indicative of at least one underlying risk factor: the cold weather/room temperature is a risk factor for SIDS?

The peak incidence of SIDS was found among infants ages 2 to 3 months when they are getting a few vaccine shots.   Because of this, many scientists and laymen as well have suspected that vaccination may have something to do with SIDS.   But studies are inconsistent.