Background: One postulated cause of the sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is upper airway obstruction during sleep. Several studies have suggested that SIDS may be more common in families with obstructive sleep apnoea/hypopnoea syndrome (OSAHS), but were limited by uncertainty as to whether the deaths were due to SIDS. We have tested the hypothesis that parents of true SIDS cases have an incr...

OBJECTIVE To test the hypothesis that the profile of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) changed after the Back-to-Sleep (BTS) campaign initiation, document prevalence and patterns of multiple risks, and determine the age profile of risk factors. METHODS The San Diego SIDS/Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood Research Project recorded risk factors for 568 SIDS deaths from 1991 to 2008 based ...

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) victims were regarded as normal as a matter of definition (Beckwith 1970) until 1952 when Kinney and colleagues argued for elimination of the clause, "unexpected by history." They argued that "not all SIDS victims were normal," and referred to their hypothesis that SIDS results from brain abnormalities, which they postulated "to originate in utero and lead to...

This study examines the incidence of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in Canterbury (1973–1989) in relation to climate. Three mixture models (Finite Mixture, Zero-in)ated Poisson and Hurdle) are used as novel methods which are able to highlight di8erential e8ects of climatic covariates between months of SIDS and no SIDS. These methods accommodate the extra zeros, heterogeneity and autocorrel...

OBJECTIVES Raised concentrations of antimony have been found in infants dying of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). The presumed source of this antimony is toxic gases generated from fire retardants that are present in cot mattresses. The aim of this study was to determine the role of antimony in SIDS. DESIGN Samples of liver, brain, serum, and urine were collected from all patients dying f...

This paper reports three investigations of the suggested relationship between sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and malignant hyperpyrexia (MH). In the first study 151 MH-susceptible families completed a questionnaire designed to identify the incidence of SIDS within their own pedigree. In the second study 106 SIDS families completed a questionnaire designed to identify the incidence of anaes...

The precise mechanisms for SIDS, or “crib death,” are not known, although multiple hypotheses have been proposed over the years, including abnormal brainstem respiratory control of arousal, dysautonomia, and malignant cardiac bradyarrhythmias or tachyarrhythmias.2–4 Genetic, developmental, and environmental risk factors for SIDS have been identified, such as premature birth, multiple gestations...

The association between sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and maternal smoking was compared between the United States and Sweden-two countries with different health care and social support programs and degrees of sociocultural heterogeneity. For 1990-1991 among the five US race/ethnic groups studied, SIDS rates ranged from a high of 3.0 infant deaths per 1,000 live births for American Indians...

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), the leading cause of postneonatal infant mortality, likely comprises heterogeneous disorders with the common phenotype of sudden death without explanation upon postmortem investigation. Previously, we reported that ∼40% of SIDS deaths are associated with abnormalities in serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) in regions of the brainstem critical in homeostati...

TO THE EDITOR: The article by Cummings et al. (2) emphasizes the vital role of serotonin in cardiovascular homeostasis and respiratory control, using mice with a genetic deficiency, challenged by severe and repeated anoxia. [Their model of an heritable defect as the cause of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is not consistent with SIDS with a familial recurrence of only 16/1000 (4) and the in...