Sudden infant death syndrome. Review of infant and environmental stress factors on survival

Abstract

Preventable risk factors for sudden infant death syndrome include the infant’s environment and response characteristics. Various infant and environmental factors thus modify the vital cardiocirculatory, respiratory and arousal controls in healthy infants. Similar changes in cardiorespiratory and autoresuscitative responses have been found in the analysis of sleep recordings of victims of sudden infant death syndrome. It is not known why some infants die, while others show similar changes but survive in the first year of life. The death could be due to the degree of the initial immature controls, to the severity of the additional challenge, or to a combined effect of inadequate autoresuscitative mechanisms and the cumulative influence of infant and/or environmental stressors.

Keywords

Infant - sleep - sudden infant death syndrome - apnea

¹ The first author of the article, André Kahn, died unexpectedly on September 1, 2004.