To determine the biological significance of high concentrations of non-haem iron in the livers of infants dying from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), liver samples were obtained at necropsy from 66 infants who died from SIDS and 28 control infants who died before 2.5 years of age. All were full term deliveries. Liver iron concentrations decreased rapidly with age in the two groups. Liver ir...

Thousands die each year from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Neither the cause nor basis for varied prevalence in different populations is understood. While 2 cases have been associated with mutations in type Valpha, cardiac voltage-gated sodium channels (SCN5A), the "Back to Sleep" campaign has decreased SIDS prevalence, consistent with a role for environmental influences in disease patho...

BACKGROUND Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) describes the sudden, unexplained death of a baby during its first year of age and is the third leading cause of infant mortality. It is assumed that ≤20% of all SIDS cases are because of cardiac arrhythmias resulting from mutations in ion channel proteins. Besides ion channels also cardiac gap junction channels are important for proper conduction ...

The recent US decline in sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) rates may be explained by a shift in how these deaths are classified or reported. To examine this hypothesis, the authors compared cause-specific mortality rates for SIDS, other sudden, unexpected infant deaths, and cause unknown/unspecified, and they evaluated trends in the age and month of death for these causes using 1989-2001 US l...

The Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) has four distinctive characteristics that must be explained by any theory proposed for it. (1) A characteristic male fraction of approximately 0.61 for all postneonatal SIDS in the US; (2) a distinctive lognormal-type age distribution arising from zero at birth, mode at about 2 months, median at about 3 months, and an exponential decrease with age going t...

The large decline in deaths due to the sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in the last 20 years in many countries is largely due to risk-reduction advice resulting from observational studies that examined the relationship between infant care practices and SIDS. Most of this advice remains largely uncontroversial and educators and researchers in this field are in agreement as to the specific rec...

Study objective—To examine and identify relations between sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and wind, particularly the föhn wind, in Christchurch, New Zealand. Design—A retrospective epidemiological study combining details of regional hourly meteorological variables and reported SIDS cases. Setting—Christchurch, New Zealand, between 1968 and 1997 inclusively. Participants—All 646 infants repo...

BACKGROUND The hypothesis that some cases of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) could be caused by long-QT syndrome (LQTS) has been supported by molecular studies. However, there are inadequate data regarding the true prevalence of mutations in arrhythmia-susceptibility genes among SIDS cases. Given the importance and potential implications of these observations, we performed a study to more a...

Positioning an infant to sleep on the back (supine positioning) has been recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) since 1992 to reduce the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).1 SIDS is defined as a sudden death before 1 year of age that cannot be explained despite a thorough case investigation, including a complete autopsy, death scene examination, and review of the clini...

The sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is postulated to result from a failure of homeostatic responses to life-threatening challenges (e.g. asphyxia, hypercapnia) during sleep. The ventral medulla participates in sleep-related homeostatic responses, including chemoreception, arousal, airway reflex control, thermoregulation, respiratory drive, and blood pressure regulation, in part via serotoni...