BRISTOL, England, Jan. 18 (UPI) -- British researchers added the sofa to their ongoing warning against parents sleeping with their infants -- a major cause of sudden infant deaths.
Royal Children's Hospital found that crib deaths had been cut by 75 percent since Britain began a public education campaign warning parents against sleeping with their children in 1991.
However, the team found that while crib deaths fell 50 percent in Avon, England, between 1984 and 2003, the number of sudden sofa deaths increased fourfold. Sofa deaths accounted for one in six deaths of children sleeping with parents, researchers said.
The sofa deaths were more likely among poorer families and mothers who smoked during pregnancy.
Joyce Epstein, director of the Foundation for the Study of Infant Death, said that -- despite the successful public education campaign -- crib deaths still claim more than 300 lives year.
"That's more babies over 1-month-old than from any other cause," Epstein told the BBC.
Researchers, reporting in The Lancet, recommended against sleeping on the couch with infants.
