- Start date of publicity promoting mattress-wrapping in New Zealand: 1995
- Number of babies who have slept on wrapped mattresses (to 2008): At least 180,000 (1)
- Reported cot deaths among those babies: None
- Cot deaths on unwrapped mattresses (or parallel bedding situations) during the same period: About 920
- Reduction in New Zealand cot death rate since mattress-wrapping commenced: 60% (2)
- Approximate reduction in NZ European ethnic rate: 71% (2)
- These major reductions in cot death rates cannot be attributed to the cot death prevention advice issued by the New Zealand Ministry of Health. There has been no material change that advice since 1992; and prior to the introduction of mattress-wrapping the New Zealand cot death rate had been static since 1993.
- Statistical proof that mattress-wrapping prevents cot death (as calculated by statisticians at the University of Munich): p = less than 1.9 x 10-22 (4). In mathematical terms, this is more than one billion times the level of proof which is usually regarded as establishing a medical proposition.
- Publication of results of the New Zealand mattress-wrapping campaign: Two journals of environmental medicine (3,4)
Notes:
1. Number derived from three studies reporting the incidence of mattress-wrapping in New Zealand: NZ Med J 2000;113:8-10; NZ Med J 2000;113:326-327; Eur J Pediatr 2008;167(2):251-252.
2. New Zealand Ministry of Health: official cot death statistics 1994 to 2006 (inclusive). Note: As at May 2009, only progress counts of cot deaths in 2007 and 2008 were available.
3. Cot Death - Cause and Prevention: Experiences in New Zealand 1995-2004, Journal of Nutritional & Environmental Medicine 2004;14(3):221-232.
4. Giftige Gase im Kinderbett (Toxic Gases in Infants' Beds), Zeitschrift fuer Umweltmedizin 2002;44:18-20.
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Emphasis mine.
