By Peggy O'Farrell
The Cincinnati Enquirer

You shouldn't believe everything you read in the funny papers.

Cartoonist Lynn Johnston, creator of the popular comic strip "For Better or For Worse," has gotten lots of calls since an Oct. 29 strip showed new parents Michael and Deanna letting their baby sleep on her side in a crib filled with toys and quilts.

Experts recommend babies sleep on their backs - not their sides or stomachs - to reduce the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and suffocation.

"We've been inundated with e-mails from readers correcting us on this," says Nancy Vincent, executive director of Lynn Johnston Productions, the cartoonist's Ontario-based firm. Ms. Johnston had believed that side sleeping was a safe way to help babies avoid SIDS; the cartoonist and her staff know better now, Ms. Vincent says.

CRIB NOTES

The National Safe Kids Campaign offers these crib safety tips for infants: • Slats should be 23/8 inches apart or less. • Slats should not be missing, loose, cracked or splintered. • The crib should have no jagged or sharp edges. • Parents shouldn't be able to fit more than two fingers between the edge of the mattress and the side of the crib. • The mattress support should be securely attached to the footboard and headboard. • The screws or bolts holding the crib together should be tight. None should be missing. • Corner posts should be 1/16-inch high or less. • There should be no cutouts in the headboard or footboard. • Drop-side latches should be too complex to be operated by a young child. • The mattress should be tightly covered with a well-fitting sheet. • The crib should be empty of pillows, comforters, stuffed animals and other soft items.

"It will be very obvious in the upcoming strips. The baby will be shown sleeping on her back," she says.

The strip goes against the teachings of the national "Back to Sleep" campaign, says Dr. Chuck Schubert, who works in the emergency department at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. The campaign encourages parents to make sure their babies sleep on their backs.

"The reason for that is when researchers looked at sleeping position and correlated it with SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), they found that when kids sleep on their back, the incidence of SIDS was essentially cut in half or a third," says Dr. Schubert.

And then there's all that stuff in the crib: lots of soft, fluffy quilts and blankets and stuffed animals and other toys.

"There's been plenty of evidence and concern that some kids who die of SIDS probably really suffocate because of soft bedding or stuffed animals or something that gets too close.

"They turn their head and put their face in the bedding or stuffed animal and are basically stuck there and the carbon dioxide builds up and they quit breathing and suffocate," Dr. Schubert says.

"When a child is put to sleep there should be nothing in the crib that could potentially interfere with their nasal passages. They make plenty of warm sleepers. Dress the baby up well, with maybe a light blanket, certainly nothing that's going to interfere with their breathing."

Small toys, including buttons or eyes on stuffed animals and dolls, are choking hazards for infants and very small children, he says.

E-mail pofarrell@enquirer.com.