Researchers pinpoint reason infants die from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

This is a truly fantastic development!

 

Researchers Pinpoint Reason Infants Die From SIDS

WWW.BIOSPACE.COM

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Researchers from The Children's Hospital Westmead in Sydney, Australia released a study that confirmed not only how infants die from sudden infant death syndrome, but why. 

 

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Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) accounts for about 37% of sudden unexpected infant deaths a year in the U.S., and the cause of SIDS has remained largely unknown. On Saturday, researchers from The Children's Hospital Westmead in Sydney released a study that confirmed not only how these infants die, but why. 

 

SIDS refers to the unexplained deaths of infants under a year old, and it usually occurs while the child is sleeping. According to Mayo Clinic, many in the medical community suspected this phenomenon could be caused by a defect in the part of the brain that controls arousal from sleep and breathing. The theory was that if the infant stopped breathing during sleep, the defect would keep the child from startling or waking up. 

 

The Sydney researchers were able to confirm this theory by analyzing dried blood samples taken from newborns who died from SIDS and other unknown causes. Each SIDS sample was then compared with blood taken from healthy babies. They found the activity of the enzyme butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) was significantly lower in babies who died of SIDS compared to living infants and other non-SIDS infant deaths. BChE plays a major role in the brain’s arousal pathway, explaining why SIDS typically occurs during sleep. 

 

 

[stepee]

So you develop a crib that detects the babies breathing and pokes it if it stops?

[chakoo]

12 minutes ago, stepee said:

So you develop a crib that detects the babies breathing and pokes it if it stops?

Many smart tech baby products do incorporate breathing detection. Weather that be smart socks (owlet) or smart cameras (nanit, miku pro, ...) or even some use to do sensing pads that tracked movement/breathing patterns (these have mostly been phased out for smart cameras).

[Joe]

This is HUGE! SIDS is terrifying.

[Mr.Vic20]

That is really wonderful! I can't really tell you how many nights of sleep I've lost from the smallest weird sound from one of my kids. Now they are large and make way too many weird sounds.