Infants sleeping on their backs and spitting up/vomiting?

I worried about this exact thing with all three of my children. My mother, of course, thinks I'm nuts for putting them down to sleep on their backs but then again her youngest child is 24! :) I've found that if the baby spits up while on their backs that it either just runs down the side of their cheek or they actually turn their head. Sometimes they do spit up and it goes back down their throat but they handle it just fine. If this happens they either just swallow it with no problems or cough until they've got things straightened out. I normally put them to sleep on their sides. Unlike someone mentioned, my kids never had a tendency to roll to their bellies. If they did ever roll it was always to their backs. Our last baby got pneumonia (of all things!) when she was about 2 1/2 months old. She would have coughing fits in the middle of the night so we just put her in bed with us so we could check her often and elevate her quickly if she needed it. Just to let you know though, we co-sleep with our children so we were comfortable with this. Congrats on the baby!! Good luck!