Advance in Finding Cause of SIDS
Posted by
Kevin
Every new parent spends the first few weeks of their child’s life trying to get the little buggers to sleep for more than twenty minutes a t a time. Once they manage that feat, they spend hours of their lives standing over cribs, making sure their little ones are still breathing. Very few things are more terrifying to parents than SIDS –Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. One moment a perfectly healthy baby is snoozing in its crib. The next, it is dead, breath chased out of it as if by black magic. Now a small study seems to suggest a means of determining which children are at risk for SIDS:
One of the greatest medical mysteries of our time has taken a leap forward in medical understanding with new study results announced by Dr. Daniel D. Rubens of Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle. Rubens’ study published in July, 2007 in Early Human Development found all babies in a Rhode Island study group who died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) universally shared the same distinctive difference in their newborn hearing test results for the right inner ear, when compared to infants who did not have SIDS. This is the first time doctors might be able to identify newborns at risk for SIDS by a simple, affordable and routine hearing test administered shortly after birth. In the study, medical records and hearing tests of 31 babies who died from SIDS in Rhode Island were examined and compared to healthy babies. Rhode Island has a particularly robust database of newborn hearing test data.
… The SIDS infants in Rubens’ study showed a consistent four point lower score in their standard newborn hearing tests, across three different sound frequencies in the right ear, when compared to babies that didn’t die from SIDS. Additionally, healthy infants typically test stronger in the right ear than the left. However, in each of the SIDS cases studied, the right ear tested lower than the left, reversing the test results of healthy babies.
This is a small study, involving only 31 children from only one state. But the correspondence appears to be strong and if this is borne out, it could be a large step in saving children’s lives. Not only does a test for susceptibility to SIDS mean that children who need to be watched more will be, but the nature of the test — hearing screen — suggests a vector for further research into what causes SIDS:
It is known that the inner ear contains tiny hairs that are involved in both hearing and vestibular function. Rubens proposes that vestibular hair cells are important in transmitting information to the brain regarding carbon dioxide levels in the blood. He postulates that injury to these cells will disrupt respiratory control, playing a critical role in predisposing infants to SIDS.
This could be the beginning of a truly remarkable breakthrough in pediatrics.
