New SIDS research

[Catsrus]

I've just seen this cited on Twitter - a scientist who lost her baby to SIDS refused to accept that there wasn't an identifiable reason for her child's death - so she did the research.

It looks like it's a defect in that part of the brain that causes arousal from sleep. Nothing that the parents could have done.

www.biospace.com/article/researchers-answer-how-and-why-infants-die-from-sids/

Wow, that’s an amazing breakthrough. It would be amazing if it lead to treatments/preventative measures. It looks like it can be detected through a blood test too making it something accessible.

I hope further research builds on this and we see SIDS fall even further. It’s such a cruel and heartbreaking syndrome.

Major breath through..could never wrap my head around it either. There must be a reason.

I hope this helps to differentiate between SIDS and a baby dying from an unsafe sleep environment.

That's very interesting and hopefully it can inform future guidance and maybe even screening.

But isn't there a lot of research and ethnographic study showing that regulation of young babies' breathing and arousal during sleep is partly dependent on being very close to their caregiver? ie. the adult's breathing 'reminds' the baby to breathe. Would those with the defect mentioned be at particularly less risk if they slept close to their caregiver?

'Safe sleep' practices always miss out this kind of stuff. It's good to see more safe co-sleeping guidance being provided as part of perinatal care.