Maori babies are eight times more likely to die from unintentional suffocation, largely because of high smoking rates and the cultural custom of bed-sharing. Dame Tariana Turia, former Maori Party co-leader, said this issue boiled down to "institutionalised racism, whether you like it or not." A cheaper, plastic version - called the pepi-pod - has been rolled out to 15,000 at-risk families through grassroots funding. This study also found two babies died in pepi-pods, but researchers believed their deaths had nothing to do with the devices. More babies die each year from Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy (SUDI) in New Zealand than anything else.

Source: New Zealand Herald July 09, 2016 04:41 UTC