Common infant product materials negatively impact breathing

Approximately 3,500 infants die of a sleep-related incident a year in the United States. Although safe sleep guidelines have been implemented, infants are still at risk from many commercial products. Breathing-related injuries or suffocation are of serious concern for younger infants exposed to soft product materials, yet respiration-related measures of these common materials are unknown.

Nine healthy young adults' respiratory patterns were evaluated while breathing into materials commonly used in infant products. Breathing rate, end-tidal carbon dioxide (EtCO2), heart rate, and oxygen saturation (SpO2) were collected using a Capnostream 35. Participants lay prone with their faces in contact with each material for ten-minute trials. Three baseline trials, where participants could breathe freely with no obstruction, were collected for comparison (ANOVA (p < 0.05), Tukey post-hoc comparisons).

The 100% cotton and 50/50 (cotton/polyester) materials both resulted in significant changes in EtCO2 and SpO2, while the 10/90 (spandex/polyester) resulted in only a significant change in SpO2, and no significant changes were detected for the 100% polyester material. Mean respiratory rate decreased and mean heart rate increased significantly for all materials.

EtCO2 and SpO2 are important considerations for suffocation risk when breathing into the selected materials. Even during this short time period, infants with more vulnerable respiratory systems and less robust arousal responses than the adults in this study will be at higher risk.

Conscious efforts should be made to prevent infants from interacting with soft goods microenvironments that inhibit normal breathing while using infant products.