Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is the leading cause of death in the United States for babies between 1 month and 1 year old. SIDS isn't any one illness or disease .Rather, it's the diagnosis given when a child under a year old dies suddenly. Approximately 2,300 infants die from SIDS in the United States each year. SIDS most commonly affects babies between the ages of 1and 4 months; 90 percent of cases involve infants younger than 6 months.

Doctors don't know what causes SIDS. It happens more often with premature and low-birth-weight babies. It's more in babies whose mothers didn't get the proper medical care when they were pregnant, along with baby's mothers that have had strokes. SIDS is more likely to happen with mothers who had multiple pregnancies or mothers younger than 20 years old. Putting babies on their bellies to sleep causes them to not breathe well, also on their sides because they can roll over onto their bellies as well.

Imagine the thought of a mother going into her child's room and kissing her baby good night. Expecting to hear the gentle breathe of her baby and all that she hears is silence. More children die of SIDS in a year than those who die of cancer, heart disease, pneumonia, child abuse, AIDS, cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy combined. Many researchers now believe that babies who die from SIDS are born with one or more conditions that make them especially vulnerable to stresses that occur in the normal life of an infant.

More deaths are reported in the fall and winter and there is a 60 to 40 percent male to female ratio. SIDS does not have any symptoms, babies that have been healthy and happy have suffered from SIDS too. SIDS is not a form of malnutrition, lack of care, or suffocation. SIDS can occur in all ethnic groups. Although studies have shown that African-American and Native-American babies have a higher rate of death from SIDS. Some believe that if a mother had a child die from SIDS before that, she is more likely to have her other children die from SIDS too.

There are many doctors and physicians out there that have put their own perspectives on SIDS, some may be correct and many are false or opinions. Some doctors may tell parents not to smoke around their infant to keep from getting SIDS, but it hasn't been determined that smoking around babies causes SIDS. Parents should learn as much as possible about this syndrome and create their own views.