Posture, health and safety

Lots has been said about the best for health and safest positions for babies to sleep. Since the world wide back to sleep campaigns the numbers of SIDS victims went down (although the fact that 2 things go on at the same or subsequent time do not prove any causal connection!), but other conditions, like funny misshaped heads with possible brain damage, increased. Sleeping on the back probably works as a SIDS prophylaxis because it makes it easier for the child to arouse and thus prevents him from sleeping so deeply that he forgets to breathe (which after checking off all confusing other factors is the essential definition of cot death). Besides, laying on the back is a very non-physiologic posture for a newborn, especially when he is alone. Among others it decreases his neurologic behavior and reflexes; laying on the tummy enhances neurologic beaviour and reflexes, thus stimulates breastfeeding. Good reflexes, being with another human being and breastfeeding all decrease SIDS risks and enhance each other when applied together.
Gettler LT, McKenna JJ: Never Sleep with Baby? Or Keep Me Close But Keep Me Safe: Eliminating Inappropriate Safe Infant Sleep Rhetoric in the United States. Current Pediatric Reviews, 2010,  6:71-77.
Colson SD, Meek JH, Hawdon JM: Optimal positions for the release of primitive neonatal reflexes stimulating breastfeeding. Early human development, 2008, 84(7):441-449.