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How Many Babies Die From SIDS?From year to year, the number of SIDS deaths tends to remain constant despite fluctuations in the overall number of infant deaths. The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) reported that, in 1988 in the United States, 5,476 infants under 1 year of age died from SIDS; in 1989, the number of SIDS deaths was 5,634 (NCHS, 1990, 1992). However, other sources estimate that the number of SIDS deaths in this country each year may actually be closer to 7,000 (Goyco and Beckerman, 1990). The larger estimate represents additional cases that are unreported or underreported (i.e., cases that should have been reported as SIDS but were not). When considering the overall number of live births each year, SIDS remains the leading cause of death in the United States among infants between 1 month and 1 year of age and second only to congenital anomalies as the leading overall cause of death for all infants less than 1 year of age.
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