For National Sudden Infant Death Syndrome awareness month, doctors are looking at new research that could lead to positive outcomes for infants.<\/p>\n
ST. LOUIS \u2014 October is Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Awareness Month, and even though SIDS is the leading cause of death in infants from one month to one year old, there is new research that offers promising news for families and doctors.<\/p>\n
Researchers found that genetic markers often play many roles in SIDS-related deaths from brain, heart, and lung functions. Medical experts say these genetic issues could also be made worse if there are other risk factors like unsafe sleeping, maternal smoking, obesity or mild infections.<\/p>\n
This new information could mean that genetic testing could be an important tool to prevent SIDS and keep those babies alive later in life.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe now understand 22% of all SIDS cases, which is enormous,\u201d said John Kahan, the founder of the Aaron Matthews SIDS Research Guild at Seattle Children\u2019s Hospital<\/a>. Kahan worked as Microsoft\u2019s leading chief data scientist and has used the company\u2019s philanthropic efforts to use data to find new findings centered around SIDS.<\/p>\n \u201cThe most important current research is that with a simple blood test, before a mother gives birth or after birth, you can do gene sequencing,\u201d said Kahan. \u201cAnd you can predict in advance if a child is going to have a high risk of SIDS, which is incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n Kahan said researchers now understand there are genetic defects that occur, which also led to how his son passed away as an infant.<\/p>\n Neonatologist Bryanne Colvin does work centered around SIDS and safe sleeping at Washington University. She said the research is an exciting development.<\/p>\n \u201cMany of the people that I work with in SIDS research have experienced that loss,\u201d said Dr. Colvin. \u201cThat grief and that guilt lives with them forever, and to offer some answers is really important. It has a lot of value.\u201d<\/p>\n Nonetheless, Dr. Colvin said it\u2019s still important to educate families on safe sleep. In Missouri, she said roughly 60% of all SIDS cases were related to unsafe sleeping situations. If it\u2019s discovered that an infant is predisposed to SIDS, then Colvin said it would be even more critical to make families aware of safe sleep.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would definitely be a double-edged sword because you don’t want to cause more anxiety for a family that is already anxious,\u201d said Colvin. \u201cBut in many situations, families would want that knowledge just so that they can also then tell grandma who wants to put the baby on the belly and things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n The research published<\/a> in the American Journal of Medical Genetics also revealed that infants who were more vulnerable to Sudden Unexplained Infant Deaths (SUID), which includes SIDS, also shared similar genetic profiles found in adults who died from Sudden Cardiac Death. Every year, about 360,000 sudden cardiac deaths take place in the United States. Another finding, published<\/a> in the Journal of the American Medical Association, suggests infants born to mothers with obesity are at increased risk of SUID. The research was done in a unique partnership between the Center for Integrative Brain Research at Seattle Children\u2019s and data scientists at Microsoft.<\/p>\n