On Monday, researchers reported that the use of a fan to circulate air in babies’ rooms has been linked to decreased risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

The study revealing the aforementioned has been published in October's Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, the article also stating that further looking into the matter was needed.

Researchers looked at babies from eleven California counties, finding that the risk of SIDS went down by 72% in infants whose rooms were properly ventilated by using a fan, while only 3 percent of them had suddenly died in their sleep even though the device was on during their last nap.

Senior author of the study Dr. De-Kun Li of the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, California has informed that investigations have shown the sleeping environment of babies played a vital role in reducing the risk of SIDS. Experts already urge parents to use a firm mattress, remove toys from their infants’ cribs and prevent babies from getting too warm in their sleep in order to abate the risk. Moreover, doctors say that the most important thing caregivers should do in order to further decrease the danger is to place babies to sleep on their back.

This recent study has been the first to look into the matter of room ventilation methods as a means to prevent SIDS.

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome represents the unexplained death of apparently healthy babies aged one month to one year old. It is also called cot death (in the United Kingdom) and crib death (a term often used in North America).

SIDS is currently the leading cause of death in healthy infants older than one month of age, also accounting for 1 death per 2000 births in the United States.

Although the cause of death is yet to be explained, doctors have found that the supine sleeping position (meaning that the baby sleeps on his back) lowers the infants’ arousal threshold and lessens their Slow-Wave Sleep, which consists of two deep-sleep stages, thus decreasing the risk of SIDS. It has been reported that some infants are unable to arouse from deep sleep, therefore their chances of dying by SIDS become higher due to their brain-stem defect that causes their above-mentioned inability.

An infallible prevention method (or even one that could work for all the new-born children) is presently unlikely to be discovered, since the occurrence of SIDS seems to be dependant on factors such as sex, age, ethnicity and the parents’ socio-economic status.

Nevertheless, there are some guidelines for future mothers, who should under no circumstances smoke, use nicotine patches or drink alcohol while pregnant. In addition, they should avoid subsequent births that are less than twelve months apart from one another.

Having a balanced diet and maintaining a normal weight also appear to reduce the risk of a woman’s baby to die of SIDS.