Sleepy Infants Equals SIDS Risk
August 3, 2004(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- A new study in this month’s Pediatrics shows keeping infants up past their normal bedtimes might be putting them at increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome.
Researchers from Belgium explain infants who succumb to SIDS often do so after experiencing changes in normal routines that keep them awake longer than usual. Many SIDS infants also have a history of fewer complete arousals by the end of the night, suggesting waking up completely during sleep might be the infant’s way of protecting himself against potentially dangerous sleep situations.
In this study, investigators tested 14 healthy infants in a sleep laboratory during morning and afternoon naps. All of the infants were around 8 weeks old. Half of the infants were kept up longer than normal -- about 120 minutes -- before their morning nap, and the other half was kept up before their afternoon nap. When compared to normal naps, the sleep-deprived naps were associated with the development of obstructive sleep apnea, a condition in which breathing stops for brief periods during sleep. These sleep-deprived naps were also associated with increases in the amount of “white noise” needed to wake the infants.
The investigators call for more study to confirm these findings. They write, “It remains to be determined whether the combination of the development of upper airway obstruction and a depressed arousability from sleep contributes to the increased risk of becoming a victim of sudden death that has been reported for sleep-deprived infants.”
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SOURCE: Pediatrics, 2004;114:192-197