What is SIDS ?
SIDS, or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, is when a baby dies suddenly with no obvious signs of illness or any other possible cause. It is the most cruel and frightening thing that can happen to a newborn and her family.
Cot death and crib death are two common terms used to refer to the same syndrome, although SIDS can and does also occur on the sofa or in a play pen.
To parents of SIDS babies
My thoughts are
with you
constantly while writing these pages. Please accept my sincere
condolences and warm thoughts for you and your little angel.
These pages are written for information purposes, to help increase
awareness and point at measures towards reducing the risk of SIDS.
If any content here makes you feel uneasy or is inappropriate in any
way, I do apologise. Please let me know through the contact
form so I can make the necessary changes.
If you are looking for support, you can also contact me. For
specialised support, allow me to refer you to your local SIDS
organisation. You can find it through the International Society for the
Study and
Prevention of Infant Death ISPID.org (opens in new window).
Sad enough, the What is SIDS? question does not have simple or clear answers. SIDS remains a mistery in many aspects: there is no single cause or risk factor that has allowed to rule out the syndrome.
SIDS is a so-called diagnosis of exclusion. This means that when a young baby dies and no cause is found, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is used as a label.
A lot of research has been done and is done today.
Even if SIDS has not disappeared completely, numbers have decreased in the past 2-3 decades.
This decrease is largely attributed to campaigns by governments world wide to make parents aware of the possible risk of SIDS and how to reduce this risk.
SIDS risk factors
Research has deduced higher-risk factors from studying SIDS babies worldwide.Babies with one or more of these have an increased risk to be affected by Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
A baby may be at higher risk when she:
- was born prematurely
- had a low birth weight
- was subject to passive smoking (due to smoking by mother or others around during pregnancy and after birth)
- was overweight during pregnancy
- is a teen mother
- was drinking alcohol during pregnancy
Remember that all babies can be victims of SIDS. Whether your child has none of these risk factors or several, it is ALWAYS important to follow the guidelines for preventing SIDS.
SIDS statistics
About SIDS and Statistics
What
is SIDS? With many uncertainties remaining, one often talks about SIDS
in terms
of numbers, statistics.
This sounds awful since one is actually talking about real babies and
their families, who should never be treated as numbers.
But statistics do allow science to study SIDS and to try and reveal as
many risk factors and risk reduction guidelines as possbile.
Numbers often vary by country, not only because of different cultures
and habits, but also because of the way each country defines and
collects numbers.
Only numbers of general interest are included here. Although these
numbers have been selected with the utmost care, please view them for
what they are: average numbers that give a general idea about the
topic.
The peak risk age is between 2 and 4 months old. In principle SIDS occurs from 1 month up to 1 year old, with very rare cases at higher and lower ages.
More baby boys are affected than girls.
Each year, worldwide, about 1 in 1000 babies die and are diagnosed with SIDS. In some countries this number went down to 1 in 10 000 babies in the past decades.[1],[2]
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[1] International trends in sudden infant death syndrome Hauck RF, Tanabe KO. 2008. Pediatrics 122(3): 660-666.
[2] Supplemental analyses of recent trends in infant mortality. Kochanek, KD, Martin, JA. Reviewed October 15, 2008. Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics. Available at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/pubs/pubd/hestats/infantmort/infantmort.htm (opens in new window)
