Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) – what is new?

Abstract

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is an unexpected non-violent death of an apparently healthy child in the first year of life, with no rational explanations for the death cause, anamnesis and pathomorphological studies. Risk factors of SIDS are divided into two main groups – modifiable and non-modifiable. Modifiable risk factors include: sleeping in the prone position, infant and adult sleeping together, tobacco smoke, soft bedding, and prematurity. Non-modifiable risk factors include: vulnerability due to morphofunctional dismaturity; critical period of lifespan development; exogenous stress factor. The cumulative impact of all non-modifiable risk factors was used to develop a «triple risk» model. Today, the majority of modern concepts of the sudden infant death syndrome pathogenesis are based on genetic mechanisms. The main hypotheses of thanatogenesis in SIDS are congenital metabolic defects, immunologic incompetence, serotonergic dysfunction, SIDS-critical diaphragmatic failure, cardiogenic mechanisms. The main success in reducing the SIDS rate has been achieved by controlling modifiable risk factors underlying the syndrome development.