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 It was late on May 10 this year when Ong Jun Chai, a Malaysian working in Singapore, returned home from work. His two sons, seven-month-old Ong Kai Hong and eighteen-month-old Ong Chai Hong were peacefully asleep next to each other. Satisfied about their well-being, he went in for a shower. Emerging, he found the older child had rolled over and was lying on top of the baby's face. He immediately separated the two, but found no sign of life in the baby. Ong rushed the toddler to the neighbourhood medical centre, where doctors tried to revive the infant, without success. Death was due to suffocation.
Commenting on the incident Ng Kee Chong, a leading paediatrician of Singapore, specialising in childhood emergencies, said young children should not share a bed with anybody else. He said it is not safe for children to sleep even with adults, because sometimes "when you are dead tired, you don't know what you might do." A study by the U S Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) found that placing babies to sleep in adult beds puts them at risk of suffocation or strangulation. The study revealed an average 64 deaths per year to babies under the age of 2 years placed to sleep in adult
beds.
A review covering January 1990-to-December 1997 linked adult beds to at least 515 baby deaths. Four major hazard patterns:
 Sleeping with an adult.
Becoming entrapped or wedged between mattress and another object.
Breathing obstruction by baby sleeping face down.
Baby's body passing through bed rails or openings while its head is entrapped.
Care-givers are advised to remove any loose plastic covering from the mattress that could come off and smother your baby. Also, don't give a baby under the age of one a pillow, don't let anyone fall asleep nursing a baby and don't let your baby fall asleep propped up on a cushion on a sofa or armchair.
Mothers who breastfeed should be encouraged to return the baby to the crib after feeding. It is advisable to keep your baby in a cot beside you for the first six months. Make sure there's no gap between the cot mattress and the sides of the cot through which your baby's body could slip.
(to be continued)
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