Is SIDS generally an American phenomena?

In India pediatrics suggest laying a relatively new born baby on its stomach and sometimes also putting it to sleep on its stomach to prevent indigestion and to make it burp.

The latest in the UK is to lie the baby flat on its back to prevent SID. (This is after years of us being told that lying the baby on its tummy is best!!)

New parents are now saying that lying the baby on its back is making their heads look slightly flat because of their soft skulls? The medical profession say that this is temporary and the baby will go back to normal.

I cant help feeling that if a new baby is on its back and vomits then its far more likely to choke than if it was on its side or tummy?

NO, it's all over the world. It's just more recognized & documented in America.

I honestly think it has nothing to do with what position your child sleeps in. All three of my kids slept better on their bellies than on their backs (they didn't like being face up AT ALL). They feel more secure with their bellies against something solid so I slept with them on my chest for the first few days and then next to me face down in their crib (I just checked on them to make sure no blankets were covering their face when I could hear them moving aorund.) That lasts until they're about three months old and old enough to lift and turn their heads easily, then they move to their own room. All my kids still sleep either belly down on their sides and they are now almost 9, 5 and 17 months old.

I don't know about that, but I put my kids on their bellies. In the late 80's, I took a nurses aid course through high school and we went to Porterville State Hospital in CA, it's an institution for people who's families can't take care of them. There were several babies in there who were there because they had been placed on their backs, they spit up and chocked on it. Not to death, but to the point of causing severe brain damage. They coudln't move, couldn't talk, couldn't swallow, couldn't even blink their eyes. Seeing that was enough to convince me. Fast forward to 2002, when my first was born. With all the brainwashing to put him on his back, I tried it, three times. All three times, he spit up and chocked on it. Had he not been in our room, I never would have known. Not ALL babies will turn their heads to the side when they spit up. Sometimes it doesn't come up far enough to come out of the mouth, then what? After three times of flipping him over by one arm, so he could breathe, I said no more. I again tried it with my second, thinking maybe that was just a problem with my first. Same thing happened. I decided that was the end. I can tell you for a fact, in regards to the flattening of the head from laying them on their backs? It doesn't happen to all babies, but when it does, it CAN be permanent. Both my husband's and my brother-in-law's heads are flat directly on the back of it from their mom's putting them on their backs to sleep.