On Listening to Parents: The Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Over 25 Years

Abstract

I have been watching the sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) epidemic in New Zealand over 25 years. I've seen it both coming and going. As a medical officer with the government Department of Health, I had access to official statistics from 1960. New Zealand has a small, circumscribed, stable population, a good universal public health system, a good standard of infant health, and almost full employment. However, in 1970, because New Zealand had a high postneonatal infant mortality rate in comparison with other countries such as the United States, I decided to home visit each family in Auckland (population 500 000) where an infant's death had occurred. I expected to learn of such deaths from hospital records, and although I had learned that there were approximately 80 such deaths in Auckland annually, the hospital could supply me with the names of only 10. This lack of deaths occurring in hospital explains why pediatricians were unaware of the situation. "The coroner may know of some deaths that have happened in people's homes," I was told. The coroner gave me a long list. In that year over 70 babies had died unexpectedly in their own homes, unattended by any medical practitioner. I checked the death certificates. Twenty of these home deaths were inevitable from severe congenital defects, 25 had died of unrecognized infections, but the other 25 had not been sick. They had been well cared for. They had simply been found dead after having been put down for sleep in the usual manner.