Overview of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Overview of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

  • Submitted By: hobbs12
  • Date Submitted: 04/17/2010 6:27 PM
  • Category: Psychology
  • Words: 2166
  • Page: 9
  • Views: 627

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is one of the most devastating occurrences in parents lives. A large part is because the condition is so difficult to understand and is very misunderstood. Each year Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) takes the lives of between 6000-7000 infants. SIDS is the most important single cause of death of infants under one year of age. (Bergman) The number of children who die of SIIDS each year is higher than the number of those who die from pneumonia, cancer, AIDS, cystic fibrosis, heart disease, child abuse, and muscular dystrophy combined. This is an obvious problem that has to be dealt with. Parents need to know what helps cause SIDS to occur and how to protect their children. As public awareness is ever so increasing more and more research is finding causes and ways to prevent SIDS.
SIDS was defined in 1969 as the sudden death of an infant under the age of one. Its hard because after much investigation and research it fails to present a cause of death. After the death of an infant, an investigation of the scene of death is done, a clinical history and an autopsy. When researchers are unsure of the death of the infant, it becomes labeled as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
In most occurrences, it happens quickly in the night to seemingly healthy infants between the ages of 2-4months and during the fall and winter months, SIDS occurs more often in boys than girls, with a 60 to 40 percent ratio. African American and American Indian infants are two to three times more likely to die from SIDS than other children. Population studies of SIDS in the United States have had consistently higher rates among black infants and Native American infants compared to white, Hispanic, and Asian American infants. In 1997, The National Center For Health Statistics reported that 1966 deaths occurred in white infants (0.64 per 1000 live births) while 918 deaths occurred in black infants (1.53 per 1000 live births). A rate of 2.4 times greater than that seen...

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