Cause of Sudden infant death syndrome May Be Known

Scientists may have found the cause of Sudden infant death syndrome, also known as SIDS. Researchers from NYU’s Langone Health found that seizures are the cause of SIDs and published their findings in the journal Neurology.

The Mayo Clinic explains Sudden infant death syndrome as the unexplained death of a baby. The baby is usually less than a year old and seems to be healthy. It often happens during sleep. It is sometimes called crib death because infants often die in their cribs.

The cause of SIDS is unknown. However, it may be caused by problems in the area of an infant’s brain that controls breathing and waking up from sleep.

Researchers have found some things that might put babies at higher risk. They’ve also found some things you can do to help protect your child from SIDS. The most important action may be to place a baby on the back to sleep.

According to the NYU scientists, experts estimate in excess of 3,000 families each year in the United States lose a baby or young child unexpectedly and without explanation. Most are infants, in what is referred to as sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, but at least 400 cases involve children age 1 and older, in what is called sudden unexplained death in children (SUDC). Over half of these children are toddlers, between age 1 and 3.

The researchers based their findings from a registry of more than 300 SUDC cases that was set up a decade ago by academics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Researchers used extensive medical record analysis and video evidence donated by families to document the inexplicable deaths of seven toddlers that were potentially attributable to seizures. These seizures lasted less than 60 seconds and occurred within 30 minutes immediately prior to each child’s death, say the study authors.

he new study involved an analysis by a team of eight physicians of the rare SUDC cases for which there were home video recordings. The recordings, from either security systems or commercial crib cameras, were made while each child was sleeping on the night or afternoon of their death.

Five of the seven recordings were running nonstop at the time and showed direct sound and visible motion indicative of a seizure happening. The remaining two recordings were triggered by sound or motion, but only one suggested that a muscle convulsion, a sign of seizure, had occurred. As well, only one toddler had a documented previous history of febrile seizures. Autopsies, which had been previously performed on all the children in the study, revealed no definitive cause of death.

“Our study, although small, offers the first direct evidence that seizures may be responsible for some sudden deaths in children, which are usually unwitnessed during sleep,” said study lead investigator Laura Gould, MSc, MA, PT, a research assistant professor at NYU Langone. Gould lost her own daughter, Maria, to SUDC at the age of 15 months in 1997, a tragedy that prompted her to successfully lobby to establish the SUDC Registry and Research Collaborative at NYU Langone. Gould points out that if not for the video evidence, the death investigations would not have implicated a seizure.

“These study findings show that seizures are much more common than patients’ medical histories suggest, and that further research is needed to determine if seizures are frequent occurrences in sleep-related deaths in toddlers, and potentially in infants, older children, and adults,” said study senior investigator and neurologist Orrin Devinsky, MD.