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Scandinavian SIDS risk-intervention campaigns (Norway 1990, Denmark, Sweden)

Also: Norway anti-prone sleeping programme

National information campaigns around 1990-1992 advising parents to stop placing infants prone, after prone sleeping had spread from 7% to nearly half of Norwegian infants during the 1970s-80s.

Years
1990–now
Country
DenmarkNorwaySweden
Topic
Infant sleep
Asks people to
Substitute
Strategy
Simple instruction
Channel
Clinical settingPrintTV
Audience
Parents
Parents of infants

Evidence

ObservationalPositive

In Norway prone sleeping rose from 7.4% (1970) to 49.1% (1989) and SIDS peaked at 2.69 per 1000 (1988), then prone fell to 27% and SIDS to about 1.1-1.2 in 1990-91. By 1995 SIDS was 0.6 per 1000 or less in Norway, Denmark and Sweden, from 2.3, 1.6 and 1.0, with parallel falls in total postneonatal mortality.

Sponsor (who paid)

  • National health authorities of Norway, Denmark and Sweden Foreign government

Credits (who made it)

Not recorded yet.

Related campaigns

Sources

  1. Irgens LM et al. Sleeping position and SIDS in Norway 1967-91. Arch Dis Child 1995 evaluation · 1995 · DOI 10.1136/adc.72.6.478 · PMID 7618929
  2. Daltveit AK et al. The epidemic of SIDS in Norway 1967-93. Arch Dis Child 1997 evaluation · 1997 · DOI 10.1136/adc.77.1.23 · PMID 9279146
  3. Wennergren G et al. The decline in SIDS in Scandinavia and its relation to risk-intervention campaigns. Acta Paediatr 1997 evaluation · 1997 · DOI 10.1111/j.1651-2227.1997.tb15180.x · PMID 9343276
  4. Vege A et al. SIDS changes in eastern Norway 1984-1996. Forensic Sci Int 1998 evaluation · 1998 · DOI 10.1016/s0379-0738(98)00048-6 · PMID 9717266

Research notes

Created 2026-10-23 from the sleep campaign literature search (PubMed and web search; OpenAlex was unreachable), see docs/sleep-campaigns-literature.md. Findings are paraphrased from abstracts, not full texts; official URLs come from search results and were not opened. Sponsoring agencies and exact campaign names not found; leave as a grouped case or split per country after checking national sources.

Record cases/scandinavia-sids-campaigns.json, updated 2026-10-23· Link to this campaign