Safe Sleep and SIDS Prevention

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) remains the leading cause of post-neonatal infant mortality in high-income countries. It is defined as the sudden unexplained death of an infant under 12 months that remains unexplained after thorough investigation including autopsy, death scene examination, and review of clinical history. Despite a >50% reduction in SIDS rates since the 1994 Back to Sleep campaign, approximately 100–150 Canadian infants still die from SIDS-related causes annually. For the REx-PN exam, SIDS prevention questions test the nurse's ability to: identify correct safe sleep practices (and errors), respond to common parental misconceptions ('but my baby sleeps better on their stomach'), recognize specific risk factors, and understand the distinction between SIDS and SUID. Safe sleep education is an RPN core competency delivered at birth, discharge, and every well-child visit. On the exam, writers often pair stable-sounding options with unstable data—notice the mismatch before you commit. If the stem names a license or role, reread that line; scope errors are classic trap answers even when the clinical topic is familiar. Run a 60-second scan: breathing work and oxygenation, perfusion and...