SIDS

When considering the areas of concerns that affect child, the most closely related to my life is SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome). When I was younger, my older brother passed away at the age of nine. At this time—during the late 1970s—we were informed that his cause of death was SIDS. However, through both this class and my supplementary research, I have found that the definition for SIDS has changes since that decade, and it is still not a universal diagnosis amongst all countries.

SIDS is generally defined as an unexplainable death that occurs during the post neonatal stage of an infant's development; the postneauatal stage occurs during the time span in which a child has aged to be one month until the time they turn one year old. However, this definition is not consistent amongst all countries; some countries tend to use this definition to define SUID (Sudden Unexpected Infant Death). Therefore, obtaining information concerning other countries' struggles with SIDS is relatively difficult, primarily because of the inconsistent definitions concerning SIDS.

In order to examine how SIDS in other countries relate to ours, a different measurement is much more useful to consider: PNM (postneauatal mortality rate). PNM, unlike SIDS and SUID, has a consistent definition: PNM is the percentage of infants (for that country) have passed away during the post neonatal stage of development in relationship to those that survive. So, PNM is determined by the formula (X/Y) x 100%, where X is the amount of infants in a country that passed away during the postneauatal stage, and y represents the total amount of infants (deceased or surviving) in that same country.

Despite the use of utilizing PNM because of its definite and quantitative properties, it does suffer from a glaring flaw. PNM includes all deaths that occur during the postneauatal stage of development, not only those that are attributed to SIDS. Therefore, causes of death natural or unnatural are included in this statistic. However, it is worth noting that the large majority of deaths that occur during the postneauatal stage are attributed to SIDS.

According to research, one of the best ways to prevent SIDS is by putting your infant to sleep in a non-prone (not on their stomach) sleeping position; in addition, placing a child in a supine position (on their back) have caused an even greater decline in SIDS. However, despite the vast majority of parents currently placing their infants in supine positions to rest, declines in SIDS have plateaued. Therefore, placing a child to sleep in a supine position aids in preventing SIDS, but further research must be done in order to determine additional means to aid in preventing SIDS.

Because I work in an early childhood setting, SIDS is an aliment that does not directly affect the children I serve because they have grown pass the postneauatal stage of development. However, if I have a family that comes in with a newborn child or are expecting, I can give them information from our family resource center concerning SIDS and possible means in order to prevent it from occurring.

Reference Cited

Hauck, F.R., & Tanabe, K.O. (2008) International trends in sudden infant death syndrome: Stabilization of rates. Pediatrics: Offical journal of the American academy of pediatrics. Retrieved from EBSCO Host Dastbase.