| SIDS is defined as "a sudden and unexpected | | | | SIDS rates are inexplicably high, a campaign to |
| death of an infant or young child, in which a | | | | educate mothers has resulted in a dramatic |
| thorough postmortem examination, and | | | | decrease in incidence almost 50 percent over two |
| examination of the death scene, fails to | | | | years. |
| demonstrate an adequate cause for death." It is | | | | SIDS may be sleep disorder, through the |
| the single most frequent cause of infant death, | | | | evidence is not conclusive. Most SIDS deaths |
| accounting for about 150 deaths a year in Canada | | | | occur either during the night or during nap time, |
| roughly 1 in 2000 live births and 3ooo deaths a | | | | suggesting a relationship with sleep. Parents who |
| year in the United States. | | | | happened to be in the same room with their child |
| The stories are basically the same. Usually, a | | | | at the time of death most often report that no |
| perfectly healthy, happy baby is settled down for | | | | crying was heard, raising the suspicion that the |
| a little nap or bedtime without any hint of | | | | death may have occurred during sleep. We know |
| anything amiss. When the mother goes in to | | | | that the ability to react to low oxygen levels in |
| wake up infant, she finds her child dead, blue and | | | | the blood is reduced during REM sleep, and the |
| very still. Resuscitation is attempted, the | | | | percentage of REM sleep is much higher in young |
| ambulance called, and the baby arrives in an | | | | infants that it is in older children and adults. We |
| Emergency Department, where doctors try to | | | | also know that sleep disturbances, including apnea, |
| resurrect the infant. The tiny hope of life that | | | | are commoner in premature infants who again |
| was the baby has been extinguished, and no one | | | | have a greater amount of REM sleep. All these |
| knows why. | | | | observations suggest that SIDS may be related |
| Three quarters of the deaths occur in infants | | | | to sleep. |
| between the ages of two and four months, and it | | | | When SIDS infants are examined carefully at |
| is rare after ten months of age. SIDS is | | | | autopsy, the only consistent finding is that of |
| commoner in male than in female babies, in | | | | small groupings of fresh bruises on microscopic |
| smaller babies and premature ones, in sibling of | | | | areas of blessing on the lungs and the lining of the |
| previous victims of SIDS, in infants born to | | | | heart. Exactly the same pattern is seen n infants |
| mothers who smoked during their pregnancy, in | | | | who die in choking spells or from obstruction of |
| families where cigarette smoke is found regularly | | | | their upper airway, suggesting that the final |
| in the home, in the offspring of mothers who are | | | | mechanism for SIDS may be the same. |
| very young, and in Native Americans. The deaths | | | | However, conclusive evidence linking SIDS to a |
| most often occur during the cold season in | | | | sleep disorder is lacking. Much of the clinically |
| temperature climates. One half of the infants | | | | observed information doesn't fit this hypothesis, |
| have some sort of mild upper respiratory | | | | and the suspicious is that the phenomenon is |
| infection prior to death. | | | | much more complicated that a simple sleep |
| Significantly, SIDS occurs more frequently when | | | | disorder, though it may occur during sleep. |
| infants are allowed to sleep in a prone or face | | | | Insomnia can be affected by many of factors like |
| down position and when infants are more heavily | | | | stress, depression, sickness, drug, and some bad |
| wrapped. The combination of viral illness, heavy | | | | lifestyle. One of the root cause is the partner who |
| wrapping, and the prone position increases the risk | | | | sleep beside you was the reason that make you |
| for SIDS tremendously. In New Zealand, where | | | | insomnia. |