Study: Brain Stem Defects May Cause SIDS

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/31/health/main2140832.shtml

(AP) In a small study with big implications, researchers found some of the strongest evidence yet that sudden infant death syndrome — a medical and sometimes legal mystery once known as crib death — may be caused by brain stem abnormalities.

The finding "takes the mystery away from SIDS," said Marian Willinger, a SIDS researcher at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which funded the study. "It should take the guilt away from any parent who has lost a baby because they always wonder, `What did I do wrong?' Now, they need to really understand, `My baby had a disease."'

The brain stem abnormalities involve an imbalance in the way the brain uses the neurotransmitter serotonin. The brain chemical plays a role in regulating mood and is the target for many depression-fighting drugs. But it also influences breathing, body temperature and arousal from sleep.

These functions are thought to go haywire when susceptible babies are exposed to certain risks, such as sleeping on their bellies, which is a leading contributor to SIDS.

FULL story at link above.

[lyonn]

1. Finally a source for SIDS

Many families will be relieved knowing they were not the cause. Now for the cure.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

4. I just sent this to my daughter-in-law...

They lost their first child to SIDS at 5 months of age. It's not something you really "get over".

[TallahasseeGrannie]

2. Hopeful news

and perhaps healing for parents, too.

[WePurrsevere]

3. Although it doesn't completely take the guilt away...it's helping...

maybe in time I'll completely believe it.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

5. It helps to know they're making headway

in discovering the cause of this. It's something, to be able to hope that in our lifetime, SIDS may be eradicated, sparing families the agony...
:hug:

[WePurrsevere]

6. The progress made since I lost my daughter 26+ yrs ago is

amazing and has cut down on the incident rate quite a it which is wonderful. If they can find a way to eradicate in our lifetime... that would be a glorious miracle.

Daughters #1 and 3 are both now grown adults and each just had a baby girl this year. Over the years I taught them that there may be a family predisposition (it was suspected back then) so they both take every single precaution now known, some are so different from what I was told was acceptable to do.

Although it is well intentioned the person who made this comment in the article, "It should take the guilt away from any parent who has lost a baby because they always wonder, `What did I do wrong?' Now, they need to really understand, `My baby had a disease."' probably never lost a child to SIDS. This study showing that it was probably something wrong with the baby is something I and other medical folks I knew suspected for a long while but as much as you're fairly sure logically that it was something wrong with the baby there is always the underlying emotion of the "If Only" guilt (and IME that's not exclusive to SIDS parents... we parents are often very good at feeling "guilt" about "mistakes" we feel we might have made with our children).

I noticed that you posted to another poster that your D-I-L had lost a baby to SIDS, since you didn't say your son or grandchild I'm guessing it was from a previous marriage/relationship much as mine was. It sounds like you're sensitive to how she still feels, I hope she knows and appreciates that you care. :hug:

[GoddessOfGuinness]

8. My stepson and his wife...

Step-grandma is such a mouthful...
Little Zachary was like my grandchild, even though we weren't related by blood.

As awful as it was on my stepson, I think the guilt factor was even harder for his wife, because she's a nurse. It didn't matter that she'd studied all the books and kept herself well-informed of the latest preventive techniques.

I'm so sorry for your loss... :hug:

[hedgehog]

7. I wonder where this research will go next.

Ironically, when my kids were small, the advice was to put them on their stomachs, the theory then being that these babies were choking on their vomit.

One of the articles on this research mentioned that these babies don't move around much when they sleep. I know that I and several of my children sleep like corpses; once we're asleep we don't move all night. Since depressive illness runs in the family, the seratonin connection is fascinating.