A Piece of the Puzzle
November 1, 2006 by kate baggott
Filed under Baby Care
A team of researchers at Harvard Medical School have identified a piece of the puzzle that is SIDS, reported the Scotsman this morning.
- The research team examined brain samples from 31 SIDS infants and ten who had died from other causes. The brains of SIDS babies were found to have abnormalities in nerve cells in the lowest part of the brainstem, the medulla oblongata, which regulates breathing, blood pressure, body heat and the processes involved in waking up, says the article.
Dr David Paterson, of the Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School speculated that tests to determine which babies might have the abnormality, and the risk of SIDS, in the next ten years. The number of babies dying of SIDS has been dramatically reduced by the widespread adoption of the Back to Sleep Campaign.
