HQ Team
September 10, 2024: The exact cause of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), also known as “cot death,” is still unknown. It is believed to be a combination of factors, including a baby’s developmental vulnerabilities, or environmental stress. Babies who die of SIDS are thought to have problems in the way they respond to these stresses and how they regulate their heart rate, breathing and temperature. There is research to suggest that errors of metabolism can also be a cause.
Globally, SIDS remains one of the leading causes of infant death in high-income countries.
Scott P. Oltman, from the University of California San Francisco, and colleagues examined the association between routinely measured newborn metabolic markers and SIDS in a case-controlled study. The study included infants born in California between 2005 and 2011. SIDS cases were matched to controls in a 1:4 ratio; the study included 354 cases and 1,416 controls.
Metabolites and SIDS risk
The researchers found that 14 NBS metabolites were significantly associated with SIDS. For a 14-marker SIDS model, including eight metabolites, these infants had 14.4-fold higher odds of having SIDS.
Laura Jelliffe-Pawlowski, one of the study’s authors and a professor at New York University, said the research suggests that “babies who die unexpectedly are more likely to be metabolically different than those who don’t.”
“We found that, at birth, we’re able to stratify kids as being very low risk — not zero risk, but very low risk — versus relatively very high risk for SIDS,” she said, adding that the screenings could indicate which babies need closer monitoring.
“These findings suggest that metabolic profiles at birth may have utility for individualized, targeted counseling aimed at identifying infants with an increased vulnerability to SIDS,” the authors write.
Food sensitivity and metabolism
The researchers say that their findings indicate that babies with an increased risk of SIDS may have some difficulty using and breaking down sugars or fats. Or they may be susceptible to some food sensitivities. They suggest that more research is needed to establish a direct link between SIDS risk and metabolism. And the challenge is, even if the markers are found at birth, what is to be done to prevent such an event from occurring.
The rate of SIDS slightly declined in the 1990s following campaigns advising new parents to abstain from smoking around infants, promoting breastfeeding, and as far as possible making babies sleep on their backs. SIDS remains the leading cause of postneonatal mortality, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. And, any research that helps in reducing the cause, is a welcome step ahead.
The study is published in JAMA Pediatrics.
