SIDS Statistics

Approximately 100 babies a year in Australia alone

Since the early 1990’s, thanks primarily to safe sleep educational campaigns, the incidence of SIDS across the globe has declined dramatically.

Nevertheless, SUDI (Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy), including SIDS, is the largest cause of deaths of children under the age of 12 months.

SIDS claims the lives of approximately 100 babies a year in Australia alone. That is 100 families devastated by the loss of their precious baby, with no answers as to why this might have occurred…

In funding world leading SIDS research and education, River’s Gift aim to make a formidable contribution to the discovery of further identification and treatment measures, to continue stamping out this heart-breaking loss of life.

In 2015, Australian statistics show that 113 babies under the age of 12 months were classified as “ill-defined and unknown causes of death”. In the early 1990’s, when safe sleeping practices were introduced to reduce hazards and risks, the number of infants deaths in sleep fell dramatically. Sadly, the rate of incidence of infant deaths in sleep has plateaued since this time.

  • Unexplained infant deaths occurred at the rate of 0.40 deaths per 1,000 live births. This translates as approximately 1 unexplained death in 2,500 infants.
  • Unexplained infant deaths accounted for over 14% of all infant deaths occurring in 2015.
  • Unexplained infant deaths account for the most number of mortalities occurring in infants between 1 month and 12 months of age.
  • 61% of all unexplained infant deaths were boys in 2015 (69 deaths).

Credit: Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2016