International Journal of Pediatrics
Volume 2009 (2009), Article ID 368270, 10 pages
doi:10.1155/2009/368270
Review Article

A Unifying Theory for SIDS

David T. Mage1 and Maria Donner2

1A. I. duPont Hospital for Children, Biomolecular Core Laboratory, 1600 Rockland Road, Wilmington, DE 19803, USA
2DuPont Haskell Global Centers for Health & Environmental Sciences, Investigative Sciences, Newark, DE 19711, USA

Received 8 May 2009; Revised 22 July 2009; Accepted 23 July 2009

Academic Editor: Edward F. Donovan

Copyright © 2009 David T. Mage and Maria Donner. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Linked References

  1. J. B. Beckwith, “Discussion of terminology and definition of the sudden infant death syndrome,” in Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on the Causes of the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, A. B. Bergman, J. B. Beckwith, and C. G. Ray, Eds., pp. 14–22, University of Washington Press, Seattle, DC, USA, 1970.
  2. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db, April 2009.
  3. W. G. Guntheroth, Crib Death: The Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, Armonk, NY, USA, Futura Publishing Company, 3rd edition, 1995.
  4. J. L. Emery, “A way of looking at the causes of crib death,” in Proceedings of the International Research Conference on the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, J. T. Tildon, L. M. Roeder, and A. Steinschneider, Eds., pp. 123–132, Academic Press, New York, NY, USA, 1983.
  5. J. J. Filiano and H. C. Kinney, “A perspective on neuropathologic findings in victims of the sudden infant death syndrome: the triple-risk model,” Biology of the Neonate, vol. 65, no. 3-4, pp. 194–197, 1994. View at Scopus
  6. CDC: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, “Compressed Mortality File 1979–1998. CDC WONDER On-line Database, compiled from Compressed Mortality File CMF 1968–1988, Series 20, No. 2A, 2000 and CMF 1989–1998, Series 20, No. 2E, 2003 Compressed Mortality File 1999–2005. CDC WONDER On-line Database, compiled from Compressed Mortality File 1999–2005 Series 20 No. 2K, 2008,” July 2009, http://wonder.cdc.gov.
  7. R. L. Naeye, L. S. Burt, D. L. Wright, W. A. Blanc, and D. Tatter, “Neonatal mortality, the male disadvantage,” Pediatrics, vol. 48, no. 6, pp. 902–906, 1971. View at Scopus
  8. D. T. Mage and M. Donner, “A genetic basis for the sudden infant death syndrome sex ratio,” Medical Hypotheses, vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 137–142, 1997. View at Scopus
  9. D. T. Mage and E. M. Donner, “The fifty percent male excess of infant respiratory mortality,” Acta Paediatrica, vol. 93, no. 9, pp. 1210–1215, 2004. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at Scopus
  10. D. T. Mage and M. Donner, “Female resistance to hypoxia: does it explain the sex difference in mortality rates?” Journal of Women's Health, vol. 15, no. 6, pp. 786–794, 2006. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at PubMed · View at Scopus
  11. T. Bajanowski, M. Vennemann, M. Bohnert, et al., “Unnatural causes of sudden unexpected deaths initially thought to be sudden infant death syndrome,” International Journal of Legal Medicine, vol. 119, no. 4, pp. 213–216, 2005. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at PubMed · View at Scopus
  12. C. K. Shapiro-Mendoza, M. Kimball, K. M. Tomashek, R. N. Anderson, and S. Blanding, “US infant mortality trends attributable to accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed from 1984 through 2004: are rates increasing?” Pediatrics, vol. 123, no. 2, pp. 533–539, 2009. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at PubMed · View at Scopus
  13. R. W. Byard, V. Gallard, A. Johnson, J. Barbour, B. Bonython-Wright, and D. Bonython-Wright, “Safe feeding practices for infants and young children,” Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 327–329, 1996. View at Scopus
  14. World Health Organization (WHO) Mortality archive WHOSYS, July 2009, http://www.who.int/healthinfo/morttables/en/index.html.
  15. L. Forsyth, H. M. Scott, A. Howatson, A. Busuttil, R. Hume, and A. Burchell, “Genetic variation in hepatic glucose-6-phosphatase system genes in cases of sudden infant death syndrome,” Journal of Pathology, vol. 212, no. 1, pp. 112–120, 2007. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at PubMed · View at Scopus
  16. A. Asmundo, M. Aragona, P. Gualniera, and F. Aragona, “Sudden death from hypoglycemia,” Pathologica, vol. 87, no. 6, pp. 603–616, 1995. View at Scopus
  17. Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM), July 2009, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/dispomim.cgi?id=305900.
  18. C. F. Poets, M. P. Samuels, C. A. Wardrop, E. Picton Jones, and D. P. Southall, “Reduced haemoglobin levels in infants presenting with apparent life-threatening events—a retrospective investigation,” Acta Paediatrica, vol. 81, no. 4, pp. 319–321, 1992. View at Scopus
  19. P. J. Schwartz, “The quest for the mechanisms of the sudden infant death syndrome: doubts and progress,” Circulation, vol. 75, no. 4, pp. 677–683, 1987. View at Scopus
  20. R. H. Raring, “A note on the age distribution of the syndrome,” in Proceedings of the Canadian Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths (SIDS '74), R. R. Robinson, Ed., pp. 151–156, 1974, Appendix E-4.
  21. D. T. Mage, “A probability model for the age distribution of SIDS,” Journal of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and Infant Mortality, vol. 1, pp. 13–31, 1996.
  22. H. Althoff, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, Fischer, Stuttgart, Germany, 2nd edition, 1980.
  23. N. L. Johnson, “Systems of frequency curves generated by methods of translation,” Biometrika, vol. 36, pp. 297–317, 1949.
  24. H. C. Kinney, “Brainstem mechanisms underlying the sudden infant death syndrome: evidence from human pathologic studies,” Developmental Psychobiology, vol. 51, no. 3, pp. 223–233, 2009. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at PubMed · View at Scopus
  25. J. L. Emery and J. A. Weatherall, “Certification of cot deaths,” British Medical Journal, vol. 4, no. 5841, p. 669, 1972. View at Scopus
  26. N. Øyen, L. M. Irgens, R. Skjaerven, I. Morild, T. Markestad, and T. O. Rognum, “Secular trends of sudden infant death syndrome in Norway 1967–1988: application of a method of case identification to Norwegian registry data,” Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 263–281, 1994. View at Scopus
  27. “United States Department of Health and Human Services (US DHHS), Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), Office of Analysis and Epidemiology (OAE), Division of Vital Statistics (DVS), Linked Birth/Infant Death Records 1995–2004 on CDC WONDER On-line Database,” April 2009, http://wonder.cdc.gov.
  28. B. A. Gizela, “Postmortem hemoglobin concentration changing in Sprague-Dawley white mouse,” Berkala Ilmu Kedokteran, vol. 33, pp. 207–210, 2001, Indonesian with English Abstract.
  29. K. F. Colina and H. T. Abelson, “Resolution of breath-holding spells with treatment of concomitant anemia,” Journal of Pediatrics, vol. 126, no. 3, pp. 395–397, 1995. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at Scopus
  30. S. Yilmaz and S. Kükner, “Anemia in children with breath-holding spells,” Journal of Pediatrics, vol. 128, no. 3, pp. 440–441, 1996.
  31. R. D. Pitetti, A. Lovallo, and R. Hickey, “Prevalence of anemia in children presenting with apparent life-threatening events,” Academic Emergency Medicine, vol. 12, no. 10, pp. 926–931, 2005. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at PubMed · View at Scopus
  32. D. P. Southall, “Role of apnea in the sudden infant death syndrome: a personal view,” Pediatrics, vol. 81, no. 1, pp. 73–84, 1988. View at Scopus
  33. S. Shurin, “Hematology,” in Nelson Essentials of Pediatrics, R. E. Behrman and R. K. Kliegman, Eds., pp. 494–495, W.B. Saunders, Philadelphia, Pa, USA, 1989.
  34. C. A. Hastings and B. H. Lubin, “Blood,” in Rudolph's Fundamentals of Pediatrics, A. M. Rudolph and R. K. Kamei, Eds., pp. 445–446, Lange/McGraw Hill, New York, NY, USA, 1998.
  35. N. Aladangady, S. McHugh, T. C. Aitchison, C. A. Wardrop, and B. M. Holland, “Infants' blood volume in a controlled trial of placental transfusion at preterm delivery,” Pediatrics, vol. 117, no. 1, pp. 93–98, 2006. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at PubMed · View at Scopus
  36. G. M. Guest and E. W. Brown, “Erethrocytes and hemoglobin of the blood in infancy and childhood,” American Journal Of Diseases Of Children, vol. 93, pp. 486–509, 1957.
  37. D. T. Mage, “Seasonal variation of sudden infant death syndrome in Hawaii,” Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, vol. 58, no. 11, pp. 912–916, 2004. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at PubMed · View at Scopus
  38. I. D. Rusen, S. Liu, R. Sauve, K. S. Joseph, and M. S. Kramer, “Sudden infant death syndrome in Canada: trends in rates and risk factors, 1985–1998,” Chronic Diseases in Canada, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 1–6, 2004. View at Scopus
  39. D. T. Mage, “Seasonality of SIDS in Canada between 1985–1989 and 1994–1998,” Chronic Diseases in Canada, vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 121–122, 2005.
  40. H. A. Pollack, “Changes in the timing of SIDS deaths in 1989 and 1999: indirect evidence of low homicide prevalence among reported cases,” Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 2–13, 2006. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at PubMed · View at Scopus
  41. M. H. Malloy and D. H. Freeman, “Age at death, season, and day of death as indicators of the effect of the back to sleep program on sudden infant death syndrome in the United States, 1992–1999,” Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, vol. 158, no. 4, pp. 359–365, 2004. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at PubMed · View at Scopus
  42. R. W. Byard, W. A. Stewart, and S. M. Beal, “Pathological findings in SIDS infants found in the supine position compared to the prone,” Journal of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and Infant Mortality, vol. 1, pp. 45–50, 1996.
  43. J. Sakai, S. Takahashi, and M. Funayama, “Gas dispersal potential of infant bedding of sudden death cases (II): mathematical simulation of O2 deprivation around the face of infant mannequin model,” Legal Medicine, vol. 11, supplement 1, pp. S406–S407, 2009. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at PubMed
  44. K. Coleman-Phox, R. Odouli, and D.-K. Li, “Use of a fan during sleep and the risk of sudden infant death syndrome,” Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, vol. 162, no. 10, pp. 963–968, 2008. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at PubMed · View at Scopus
  45. J. S. Torday, H. C. Nielsen, M. Mde. Fencl, and M. E. Avery, “Sex differences in fetal lung maturation,” American Review of Respiratory Disease, vol. 123, no. 2, pp. 205–208, 1981. View at Scopus
  46. D. S. Paterson, F. L. Trachtenberg, E. G. Thompson, et al., “Multiple serotonergic brainstem abnormalities in sudden infant death syndrome,” Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 296, no. 17, pp. 2124–2132, 2006. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at PubMed · View at Scopus
  47. M. P. L'Hoir, A. C. Engelberts, G. T. van Well, et al., “Risk and preventive factors for cot death in the Netherlands, a low- incidence country,” European Journal of Pediatrics, vol. 157, no. 8, pp. 681–688, 1998. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at Scopus
  48. O. Finnström, “A genetic reason for male excess in infant respiratory mortality?” Acta Paediatrica, vol. 93, no. 9, pp. 1154–1155, 2004. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at Scopus
  49. F. L. Rimell, A. Thome Jr., S. Stool, et al., “Characteristics of objects that cause choking in children,” Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 274, no. 22, pp. 1763–1766, 1995. View at Scopus
  50. O. N. Enwo and M. Wright, “Sausage asphyxia,” International Journal of Clinical Practice, vol. 55, no. 10, pp. 723–724, 2001. View at Scopus
  51. R. Altkorn, X. Chen, S. Milkovich, et al., “Fatal and non-fatal food injuries among children (aged 0–14 years),” International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology, vol. 72, no. 7, pp. 1041–1046, 2008. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at PubMed · View at Scopus
  52. D. Gregori, L. Salerni, C. Scarinzi, et al., “Foreign bodies in the upper airways causing complications and requiring hospitalization in children aged 0–14 years: results from the ESFBI study,” European Archives of Otorhinolaryngol, vol. 265, no. 8, pp. 971–978, 2008. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at PubMed · View at Scopus
  53. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2002), “Nonfatal choking-related episodes among children—United States 2001,” MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. vol. 51, pp. 945-948, 2002.
  54. D. T. Mage and E. M. Donner, “An X-linked genetic susceptibility for SIDS and respiratory failures,” Journal of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and Infant Mortality, vol. 1, pp. 295–306, 1996.
  55. F. Grémy, D. Salmon, R. C. François, and M. Bertin, “Accidental and voluntary asphyxiations by coal gas occurring in Paris from 1946 to 1962. Statistical study. Particular influence of the concentration of carbon monoxide and atmospheric conditions,” La Presse Médicale, vol. 76, no. 23, pp. 1099–1102, 1968, French with English Abstract. View at Scopus