Child abuse by suffocation: A cause of apparent life-threatening events

Abstract

Despite decades of attention, child maltreatment is a pervasive problem that remains under-recognized (1,2), leaving younger children and infants at great risk of lethal child maltreatment (3). Recurrent intentional suffocation of a child by a caregiver – termed suffocatory abuse – is a particularly deadly form of maltreatment. The present article summarizes the importance of considering suffocatory abuse as a differential diagnostic possibility, especially in infants with apparent life-threatening events (ALTEs) or apparent sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).