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The Importance Of Sleep And SIDS

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As a parent, there are two important guideline we should know when caring for our infant, which is sleep and nutrition. An average infant from newborn to 2 years old needs at least 12 to 18 hours of sleep; an average child from 3 to 5 years old needs at least 11 to 13 hours of sleep; an average teen from 12 to 18 years old needs at least 8.5 to 10 hours of sleep and an average adult age and up need at least 7.5 to 9 hours of sleep. When learning about sleep you will learn about REM sleep and SIDS. During REM sleep, which is when most dreams happen, the brain uses much more energy than during non-REM sleep. Then there is Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) it is an unexplained death of an infant, under one year of age. SIDS is always linked to things that are different from what's usually expected in the baby's brain part that is responsible for controlling arousal from sleep and breathing. Even though all infants are able to be hurt by SIDS, some sleep environment has proven to raise the risk of SIDS. Some of the causes and things that make it more likely that someone will get a disease like SIDS include mother’s maternal age, nicotine exposure, alcohol use during before a baby's birth, lack of breastfeeding, very high or low room temperatures, excess beddings that are likely to result in suffocation, bed sharing and premature birth.

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