Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Christina Melcher

Anatomy & Physiology 2

King University

When I was five years old my mother and father told me and my brother that they had a huge surprise to tell us. The surprise they had to tell us was that we were going to have another person in the family and that I was finally going to be a big sister. 9 months passed and finally my little brother was welcome into the world. Little did we know that his presence in our lives would make a big impact on us even though he was not in our lives for long. On black Friday my mom and our neighbor did their usual black Friday shopping all day. Leaving my father to babysit us. The last thing I remember about that day was laying my head down to sleep and waking up to my father banging his head against the wall hysterically. It was not to long after that I was walking to our neighbors in the middle of the night because my parents had to go to the hospital with my little brother. Waking up the next morning was one of the hardest days of my life and I was only five years old. My parents sat on the couch and broke the news that my little brother had passed away in his sleep. Years down the road when I could actually understand what had happened I was told my brother died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is the unexpected death of a child that remains unexplained even after I full investigation (Parker, 2002). 3,500 infants from 1-12 months old die each year from SIDS (Parents and Caregivers, 2014). I chose to write about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome because it hits extremely close to home and spreading the word about it is something me and my family are very passionate about. Unlike most diseases there are a lot of things that are not known about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. I personally believe that it is important for people to be informed about this disease because of the fact that little is known

about it, but also because over the years ways to prevent it have been uncovered that could potentially save babies lives.

One of the things that is so crazy about this specific disease is that even after years of research an exact cause for this disease is still unknown. Although a cause for this disease has not fully been discovered yet there is speculation that SIDS infants are born with an abnormality in their arcuate nucleus portion of their brain (Parker, 2002). This portion of the brain is said to control breathing and waking during sleeping (Parker, 2002). Normally when an infant experiences lack of sufficient oxygen while sleeping something in their brain signals them to wake up (Parker, 2002). This is not the case for infants with an abnormality in their arcuate nucleus and the lack of this protective mechanism causes infants to die from SIDS. When it comes to symptoms and treatments of this disease because there is little known about it, it is extremely hard to detect and there are virtually no symptoms and no cure. Although there are no symptoms and cure for this disease there are risk factors that can be taken into consideration that could potentially save an infant’s life. Some of these risk factors are: putting an infant on his/her back to sleep, using a firm mattress, share a room but not a bed, keep lose soft pillows out of the babies sleeping area, and avoid smoking during pregnancy and after birth (Parents and Caregivers, 2014). Risk factor are ways to prevent a disease or disorder from occurring. A lot of people feel that doing some of these things make their infant feel uncomfortable or lessen their ability to sleep. Although it may not be the ideal sleeping situation it lessens the chance of a baby dying tremendously. Not to mention doing these simple things has no direct effect on the child’s health what so ever. You would think that something that small would not have a direct effect on preventing Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, but since the back to sleep campaign has been promoted the rate of deaths have decreased tremendously. Over the years this disease has gone from having little known about it to having a list of risk factors that could potentially prevent this from occurring in infants. I had the privilege a couple summers ago to be a part of the research at a research facility located at Boston Children’s Hospital. I was able to work as a lab intern for 6 weeks under one of the top researchers of SIDS Dr. Hannah Kinney. A few things her lab is currently researching multiple serotonergic brainstem abnormalities, decreased muscarinic receptor binding, and late oligodendrocyte progenitors. There is so much research currently going on that the future looks bright in the SIDS research world. If a cause is discovered they can than develop test to diagnose it and even find a way to treat it especially if it has to deal with a chemical imbalance in the brainstem. Each break through makes them one step closer to finding closure for parents who have lost a child to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and one step closer to preventing parents from having to bury their child.