SUDDEN INFANT DEATH SYNDROME (SIDS) Introductio

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) accounts for most deaths in children who die between the ages of 1 week and 1 year. SIDS accounts for more deaths than are due to childhood cancers and non-accidental injury. Issues involved include populations, prevalence, and causes, as well as social, ethical, and economic concerns. Research includes universal efforts toward understanding multiple possible risk factors. The nurse is viewed as having an important role in all aspects of SIDS, to include possible prevention and research (Busuttil & Burchell, 1992).

Sudden infant death has always existed; records occur in the Old Testament and Roman records, and in medical and legal literature from the 12th and 13th centuries. "Cot death", a term coined in 1954, was defined as an apparently healthy infant unexpectedly found dead in its sleeping quarters. In 1965, the term was narrowed to include only those cases which could not be explained; this narrower definition corresponds closely with the term sudden infant death syndrome, proposed in the USA in 1969. Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is also called "crib death". It is defined as a sudden and unexplained death of a previously healthy infant. The value of the use of the term SIDS includes: the demonstration of the scale of the problem, the stimulation of research, the focus of attention on the infants history, and the thoroughness of the postmortem exa

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Regarding the contribution of bacterial diseases to SIDS, evidence is lacking; most studies on infectious causes have focused on viruses or toxin producing bacteria. Marginally significant associations have been found between influenza virus and SIDS; respiratory syncytial virus has been isolated from 90 percent of older infants with SIDS. Reports conflict regarding toxigenic bacteria (Blackwell, Saadi, Raza, Stewart, & Weir, 1992). Sayers, Drucker, Morris, and Telford (1992) found that synergy occurs between toxins of nasopharyngeal staphylococci and enterobacteria and that this combination is more likely to occur in the nasopharynx of SIDS than healthy infants. Thermoregulation is associated with SIDS. The head of the infant is the site of 40 percent of heat production and 85 percent of heat loss; covers rising over the head could result in acute thermal imbalance with a rise in brain temperature and heat stress. Studies show characteristic changes with age in the responses to changes in temperature; in the first few weeks after birth hypoxia under mild cold stress conditions leads to a reduction in minute ventilation. Future studies need to determine interactions between thermoregulation and respiratory control by char
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Approximate Word count = 3525
Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page)