Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Becoming a mother for the first time is a frightening thing. Although our pregnancy was planned, we didn't expect to be successful so soon.  I felt unprepared when we became pregnant and, like many new mothers, ran to the book store and picked up a pile of books to help me through my pregnancy. 
I learned what to eat, how to exercise and could give you weekly updates on how my fetus was developing. All of this knowledge was completely useless once my daughter was born. I couldn't believe that, despite all my readings and degree in early childhood, I was at a loss when it came to caring for a newborn.
SIDS was a HUGE source of stress for me.  I think the ambiguity of the syndrome is what scarred me the most. It was something you couldn't do much to prevent, you just had to cross your fingers and hope it didn't happen to your baby.
The more I researched the more I found that there were actually several things we could do to prevent the chances of SIDS. Keeping the temperature at 70, not letting a baby sleep on your chest and of course putting a baby to sleep on their back were all preventative measures. Still, I checked on my infant constantly to make sure I saw her little check moving up and down. She began sleeping through the night, I however was waking every 2 hours to check on her.
I hope that we will soon know more and understand more about SIDS.  sidscenter.org listed the US as having the second highest infant mortality rate due to SIDS.  The Neatherlands and Japan were raked as the lowest.

Resources

Geaprgetown University (Retrieved 2011) National Sudden and Unexpected Infant\Child Death and Pregnancy Loss. Resource Center. Retrieved from http://www.sidscenter.org/Statistics.html