SIDS is the most common cause of infant death, outside of infants born with birth defects or as a result of complications from prematurity. The condition, which includes any infant death between one month and 12 months of age that can not be explained after a medical investigation, is one that continues to baffle the medical world and leave grieving parents everywhere longing for answers.
The CDC reports that 4,000 infants die from SIDS every year in the United States, a number that is troublingly high.
The organization also notes that “Even after a thorough investigation, it is hard to tell SIDS apart from other sleep-related infant deaths such as overlay or suffocation in soft bedding. While an observed overlay may be considered an explained infant death, no autopsy tests can tell for certain that suffocation is the cause of death.”
Theories on what actually causes SIDS have ranged, although some doctors have speculated that there is some kind of genetic predisposition in a baby’s brain, that combined with certain risk factors, such as overheating, stomach sleeping, or smoking in the home, can “trigger” the baby to stop breathing and pass away suddenly. However, the CDC states that health care professionals aren’t sure of the exact cause of SIDS.
But one doctor at Seattle Children’s Hospital thinks that he is close to answering the question of what causes SIDS–and preventing infant deaths with one simple test.
Read the rest at verywell.com
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