NEW YORK, US - 'DO not leave infants less than one month old in a sitting position for a long period of time,' suggests Dr Aurore Cote, because this may place them at increased risk for sudden infant death.

Dr Cote, from McGill University Health Center in Montreal, and colleagues report that deaths among infants in a sitting position accounted for about 3 per cent of the infant deaths they reviewed as part of their study.

'Caution should be used when placing younger infants in car seats and similar sitting devices, whether the infants have been born prematurely or not,' Dr Cote and colleagues report in Archives of Disease in Childhood.

Dr Cote's group conducted a 10-year review, through December 2000, of all sudden unexplained deaths between birth and 1 year of age that occurred in the province of Quebec. They used medical and coroners' records to identify 99 explained deaths, caused by heart-related problems or infections; and 409 unexplained deaths.

Overall, 10 infants in the unexplained death group and 7 in the explained death group died while sitting in a car seat or other sitting device. All other deaths occurred while infants were lying down.

When the researchers accounted for age at death and adjusted for prematurity, they found that 9.4 per cent of the infants who died at less than 1 month of age were in a sitting position at the time of death. By contrast, just 2.4 per cent of older infants died while in a sitting position.

After reviewing individual cases of young infant deaths, time spent in a sitting position, the presence of airway problems 'may have contributed to the death of the infants in a sitting position', Dr Cote and colleagues note.

Recommendations concerning travelling in car seats and the use of infant seats should consider the findings of this study, the researchers conclude. -- REUTERS