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Researchers Find Clue to SIDS Early Detection
SpaceAdmiral writes "The Globe and Mail is reporting that scientists have found babies who die from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) tend to have an abnormality in their brain stem. By linking SIDS to a biological cause, it may now be possible to test for the abnormality and treat babies at risk of SIDS."
Why do scientists have to ruin everything, can't they just relax and laugh at SIDS like everybody else?
Damn I'm going to burn for that.
Trolling is a art,
S.I.D.S. /_\
I thought everyone knew that Anonymous Cowards caused the Slashdot Instant Death Syndrome when they associate with normal people outside of their basement environment.
Sudden Article Death Syndrome... you know, when you see a new headline, and just as you're preparing to welcome the new article into the world...
"Nothing to see here. Please move along."
So sad...
Will I go to hell for making a joke about SIDS? What if it's not that funny? Guess I'll find out.
And does posting as AC keep me safe from divine retribution?
...but what ever happened to natural selection? I see modern science totally mucking up the gene pool.
Oh well, hopefully gene therapy will be here sooner than later to fix it.
I think that "abnormality in the brain stem" is itself due to the parentus getting maddus at the kiddus and giving him a slappus for which they don't want to take the responsibilitus.
If you know what I mean.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
I mean, face it. This is Slashdot. 99% of the readers have never had a girlfriend, let alone children.
Mrs. Otter gave birth to our first pup a little over a year ago, and I noticed even then that many of the strategies we were given to reduce the chances of SIDS (baby on their back, in their own bed, no blankets, no "crib-bumpers") really seemed to be about reducing the risk of suffocation.
I'm no scientist, but hearing a theory that some babies might be a little worse of when required to react to lack of oxygen tracks pretty well with what the prevention techniques.
Sounds promising - time for a bigger study, I think.
Running Windows^H^H^H^H^H^H^H OSX and Linux in the home. (I don't have time for Solitaire any more.)
They will find out that there are a notable amount of SIDS deaths that are marked as SIDS because doctors didn't want to make the parents feel any worse for putting the kid in a water bed, or with inappropriate bedding... or not sleeping with their kid the first 3 months to help regulate their breathing, or being too far away to have heard the baby cough up some sour milk and drown themselves...
SIDS is a horrible thing... but quite a few deaths that were actually the fault of the parent for not researching what risk there is to stick a tiny baby in a bed away from them. Heaven forbid we mention that there is a risk associated with anything... there are risks of not breastfeeding, risks of not staying close to the baby, risks of formula, risks of food. Instead of giving parents enough information to make their own decisions (and be liable for them), we don't ever want to infringe on someone's right to be ignorant.
This sig is the express property of someone.
Neat.
Let's hope they baby this idea, before it dies an early death.
Have you read my journal today?
No, previously it was caused by laying babies on their back, before that it was caused by laying babies on their belly, and before that it was side, back, belly, back, belly, belly, B, A, Start.
Another thing that a test would allow for is for mothers to terminate such a pregnancy. It'd be a lot better to know for sure than to wonder if your baby is going to die randomly.
I just got out a seminar on this at med school and it is WAY too soon to be talking about screening or diagnostics from this. Promising, yes, but the pages of JAMA and NEJM are full of promising SIDS findinds that have fallen by the wayside (plus the current measurement techniques require DEAD babies).
/end cynicism
but this is more like the beginning of the beginning of a "solution" to SIDS. If there are brain stem and chemical abnormailites that cause SIDS, perhaps eventually we could check for those things in new babies before sending them home. Since the abnormailities were found in autopsies though, I'm wondering how long it will be before these abnormailities can be detected through some non-invasive procedure. But once there's a way, we could figure out which babies were prone to this and provided targeted warnings to parents, that would help--even if there's no immmediate "theraputic" solution.
Our daughter is 6 months old now, and sleeps mostly on her back or side, but it was strange to worry about her sleeping on her stomach during the first few months of her life. In every situation where you're with healthcare workers as a prospective parent, everyone is always warning you about SIDS and how your baby should never sleep on her side. The midwife, the pediatrician, the LD nursese. New parents already have a lot to worry about, so it would be nice if SIDS warnings could be (more) targeted at the babies who are most likely to have a problem. Of course, if this turns out to be only one of many causes, we'll have to keep worrying about it.
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Your mixing them up some. When our kids were babies, we were told to lay them on their stomach so that they wouldn't aspirate their own vomit if they spit up during their sleep. Then suddenly they decided that doing that caused SIDS. It would be nice if they actually came up with a cause rather than just pulling theories out of their ass.
While this will possibly one day be good news, the number of tests for pregnant mothers and babies is just astounding. It turns into a situation where pregnant women are told "you have a 1 in 4000 chance that your child has X," which creates a lot of worry and concern for what in 3,999 out of 4,000 cases is nothing.
Frequently, these tests are for things that can't be cured, or that have experimental cures that are sanctioned by the American Societies of Obstetrics/Pediatricians, but the treatment success rate isn't known, nor are the potential harms of a lot of the "cures."
I'm not belittling the science here, nor am I saying that this isn't a good thing, I'm just pointing out a human cost here -- the stress levels for tests and procedures during these stages of development are very high, and it is an extremely rare doctor who will/can admit that their procedures are experimental.
If you're pregnant or have a small child, do some research on the tests you'll be given. You'll be amazed at what you discover.
After scanning the posts on this topic, I crave a -1 Inhumanly Tasteless moderation option.
I have suffered from being misunderstood, but I would have suffered a hell of a lot more if I had been understood.
Maybe it's time to scale back or end the Back to Sleep campaign before we have even more babies with flat heads.
My 13-month-old son would have never gotten a moment's sleep if we had tried to force him to sleep on his back for the first year of his life -- he hates sleeping on his back, and always has. The same medical industry drones who wanted us to do prenatal testing for Down's Syndrome (what difference would knowing this beforehand make, other than a stressed-out pregnant woman? We'd love our son just as much.) also harped on the "Back to Sleep" campaign. When we balanced almost assured skull deformity against the low risk of SIDS, there wasn't any choice at all.
I'm all for making sure my son is safe, but keeping a death watch isn't my idea of parenting.
You mean, like not putting the baby in a cage in another room, where it can't queue its own breathing off of its mother's? They don't call it "crib death" for no reason.
As a father of a two years old, I must say that such a test could have saved me from 1 year of random nightmares. Because having the possibility of your kid dying with no warning is very very troubling.
:)
OTOH, it prepares you for the rest of their youth when they seem to make every attempt at reaching a premature death through various foolish activities they call "extreme sports"
Natural selection is, in the most basic form, eliminating those traits that do not survive in whatever the current environment is. In this case, assuming that a defect transforms from near certain fatality to usually treatable, even if through human advancement of the 'environment', the environment simply has changed to not weed out that attribute, one way or another.
Really, if you want to have the heartiest gene pool with respect to the whole natural selection scheme of things, you keep everyone alive you can within reason, even if no apparent benefit can be objectively realized for their apparent defect. The whole deal is that when the environment changes, bizarre things can happen and the more genetic diversity your population has, the more able it is to survive radical changes.
An example is sickle-cell anemia, most common people with an incomplete grasp of natural selection would think 'that sucks, let nature eliminate that gene from the pool!'. However in the incomplete dominance model it happens to behave, a person heterozygous for sickle cell anemia happens to be much more resistant to malaria.
In the case of this article, let's assume some neurological pathogen suddenly becomes ubiquitous to the human environment, and somehow the brain stem 'defect' shields those with the trait. Assume this preliminary research is correct and leads to a cure for SIDS, for the sake of discussion. You have a hearty population with a now harmless defect that would be the only survivors. If SIDS wipes out that 'defect' and such a weird pathogen came, the species goes extinct.
To be trekkie for a moment, a good demonstration is when the TNG crew came upon a planet that eliminated all defective conceptions to not deal with the associated problems. However, their planet was saved from obliteration based on technology in Geordi's visor, which never would have come about in a society where they avoided having to make such a device. The principle is interesting fodder for science fiction, and that I think illustrates well the pitfall of 'let only the best go on'. Best is always relative to the current status quo, which is never unchangeable.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
One of those rare, well-informed, slashdot posts that rebuts a conclusion based on a lack of/incomplete understanding of the topic at hand. Nicely put.
If you understood natural selection, 'diluting' the population is never bad. Genetic diversity to the extent that a species can pull it off always means more flexibility. See my other post around here.
For example, picture the population genetic diversity represented as a bell curve, with the 'optimum' being the modal value. This curve comes about from a whole set of selection pressures, which in an abstract way in this example maps in the aggregate toward that modal value being allowed to survive.
If your gene pool is 'more pure', You have a very very steep curve with a very small stardard deviation. Suddenly some aspect of the environment shapes the landscape such that anyone within two standard deviations of that particular curve would die off, leaving a small percentage of population which may or may not be viable, with a high chance of not being viable.
Now picture a 'dilute' population all over the place with maybe a peak, maybe barely discernible. Now the same calamity comes about and wipes out exactly what would have been two standard deviations of the previously mentioned curve, but now it's only maybe a half of one standard deviation in this, and new curve or curves form to accommodate the calamity from the much more likely viable remaining population.
This is a really abstract graphical way to complement the physical examples given elsewhere.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Mos parents research will take them to the internet, where the sites that know jack, ignore science, base 'fact' on nothing, or coincidence at best far outweigh the site that actual provide factual information.
I did an astounding amount of research after my first child was born. Someone without an knowledge of science can easily be lied to.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I think I may have SIDS
You think you may have Sudden Infant Death Syndrome? I don't think you can have that
Well I think mine may be going more gradually. I think I may have GRIDS.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
It would be good for people (especially without kids) to really understand why SIDS is still a problem, and that's precisely because WE DON'T KNOW WHY IT HAPPENS. No matter what you do right, no matter how much you know about babies in general and yours in particular, the kid can still croak in the cradle or crib, in another room or right behind you. Finding something that helps detect it before they die is phenomenally wonderful. I'm not going to suggest that every parent knows exactly how to do every right thing for their infant and that children don't end up dying from parental ignorance or (god forbid) abuse and neglect (remember the baby recently used as a bludgeon?) but there are a lot of parents out there who die a little more when they read about how it was because they were bad parents that their baby mysteriously passed away. So, be careful with your assumptions. (Don't know why I ask in this forum....)
"They" are looking for a cause, but it is damn difficult. In the mean time it's hell for parents.
Just removing the hearsay would be a good thing.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
As the father of a recently born daughter I can't tell you how much I worried about her. I couldn't even sleep the first night because I had to keep checking her breathing. I know its a bit spastic but some sort of instinct kicks in and you can't help it. Some science behind why these little bundles of joy have such a hard time would be greatly welcome.
I thought it was a good idea
You're looking at it the wrong way round. You're seeing the species as important. It isn't. What's important is the genes. More correctly the survival of genes which individuals carry. Every human on the planet is in direct competition with every other human in the race to spread the genes they carry. It's up to the individual to make sure that their genes make it to the next generation, successful ones do, unsuccessful ones don't. The species is just a collection of individuals who's genes are relatively similar.
Read "The Selfish Gene"
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Selfish-Gene-Richard-Dawk
Deleted
the treatment of this condition required the use of stem cells? and if the treatment was administered in utero?
explode...maybe....or would he fall asleep and stop breathing for now apparent reason?
thanks for reading the flamebait.
Sometimes stories like this get me thinking in odd, heartless ways.
If this condition has a genetic cause (not saying it does or doesn't, mind you) . . . then don't we make our species weaker by treating it and allowing those kids who would have died to grow up and reproduce?
Sure, in this one case it might only be a few thousand kids a year, but add up all the diseases and conditions that have genetic links that we are treating successfully with modern medicine . . . while the short-term gain of having a large number of people survive who would otherwise die (and of course, not having the impact of those deaths on their families and communities ) is obviously a major gain -- what is the long term implication for our species' ability to survive?
Ok, even though this was posted from an AC (and I rarely reply or moderate them up), I found this hilarious.
Any random and topical to the konami code gets +5, imho.
I'm going to bring up an unpleasant topic because I'm hoping someone here has real information and can talk about the history of SIDS.
When I was growing up, the thinking about SIDS was that while the phenomenon existed, a good number of SIDS cases were actually murders of children by parents (if I recall, mothers were primarily blamed) using SIDS as the alibi.
Was that crap? Do we know? What's the thinking now? (Not what causes it, but whether the number of cases of SIDS is actually the number of ACTUAL cases of SIDS.) Was that a transient suspicion which has been disproved or otherwise regected?
is a "Preview" button. I should register for a patent for that little snippet of code.
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
I think you read a summary from a different article, since this one doesn't imply surprise on the part of the scientists at all. But I'll still try to answer your question: The biological cause (e.g. an abnormality in the brain stem) is being contrasted here with a statistical correlation (e.g. lying babies on their back seems to reduce SIDS, but we don't really know why) as opposed to being contrasted with a mystical cause (e.g. magical unicorns that, despite being pretty cute, are incredibly vicious and deadly).
"Time for a bigger study, I think" Unfortunately, Dead babies are hard to come by. The article gives 100 SIDS cases/year in canada, that's not very many, compared to the thousands of samples taken in your usual medical study. Even if Dr. Researcher were to somehow convince all 100 distraught parents of 100 dead babies to lend their child to science, he would still only have... 100 samples. The article cautions that 31 cases studied isn't very many, but that's 30% of the average annual SIDS occurance rate in canada. 31% is a much bigger slice of the study/sample pie than a study of other diseases might get (2,000 cases out of how many million cancer patients?) A bigger study, I'm afraid may not be quickly forthcoming. I, for one, would certainly hate to be the guy that goes around the nation, asking distraught parents if he can borrow their baby's body.
Yeah, for our first they said "always put her on her back, so she won't suffocate in the pillow". For the 2nd, they said "always put her on her stomach, so show won't suffocate on her puke". Stupid fricken doctors: for our 3rd, we let him sleep any damn way he wanted to, like we should have with the first two!
And not that there's anything funny about SIDS, but I just have to link to an article on Sudden Elder Death Syndrome
There was also a copy of Poems and Rhymes Around the World bookmarked on page 27 found in the baby's room.
Actually, parents were told to lay kids on their stomachs because they sleep more soundly that way. The vomiting/aspiration thing sounds all doctorly, though, so they piled that on top... but mostly it was easier for mom and dad for baby to sleep more.
They don't know why some babies die of SIDS, but they know what makes it more likely. When the New Zealand study found the correlation with stomach-sleeping, many countries started "back to sleep" campaigns to cut SIDS risk. SIDS deaths dropped anywhere from 50% to 70% in the wake of such campaigns, so even without knowing the cause, they found a factor.
Of course, it makes sense: if some babies die in their sleep because they stop breathing and it doesn't wake them up, then a practice which causes them to sleep deeper would make that more likely. Duh.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
Chances are, if my mothers second born child did not die of SIDS over 25 years ago, I probably wouldn't exist today.
And having talked to my mom about it on occasion, it sure would have made it a lot easier for her with me if she knew a way to be sure the same thing would't cause her to find me dead in my cot. My brother, who is 10 years younger than me, always slept with a sort of breathing detector, nothing intrusive, but if he stopped breathing, or sort of pulled out the cord, we would know about it, my mom was taking no risks.
There are countless ways that children die, and it is impossible to protect them from everything, but there are those parents who have lost a child, and as with any seemingly random death, it can seem that fate is out to get you. When there is a good reason, and a way to try prevent it with any other children you may have, a good explanation is a way to make it just that little bit easier to get through each day, because my understanding is that there isn't a day, even 26 years later, that my mother doesn't think of her daughter that isn't.
Here in NZ cot death (to call it the old-fashioned name) is a big problem. I believe some research a while back found that it was linked to (mildly) toxic fumes out of mattresses. What happened to that idea?
And BTW there's nothing funny about the subject. I'm a father. I have a friend whose child died in cot death. Any research is good - but don't forget to cast a critical eye over it.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
...test for the abnormality and treat babies at risk of SIDS
I think we know where this will probably lead.
Anyone have the stomach to research the Down Syndrome test?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
It's been awhile since I saw any shows that focused at all on SIDS, but I thought they already knew there was a problem with the brain stem? I mean, people don't just keel over for no reason, these babies are dying of what amounts to respiratory or cardiac shutdown, they just stop doing the things necessary for basic biological survival. These things are controlled by the brain stem. It should be no surprise that SIDS is linked to the brain stem.
And how do they intend to 'treat' these babies? pacemaker for a 2 yr old anyone? I hate to be the cold insensitive SOB but what kind of a life will a kid like that have? I sometimes wonder if all that science we use to prolong life that was not meant to be is not such a good idea. Oftentimes that science serves only the others around them, and makes their life living misery.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
"Our son prefers to sleep on his stomach or side; I know that some research indicates a slight correlation of SIDS with sleeping on the stomach, but there is no evidence of causation. It's the only way he would sleep; what's a parent to do?"
Well, from one parent to another, let me say this... it's not a "SLIGHT CORRELATION", it's a statistical fact that the rate of SIDS has dropped by 50% since the inception of the Back To Sleep campaign.
You can spin it however you want, but an awful lot of babies were smothering themselves on the bedding by sleeping on their stomachs that didn't have to be. The rate among African-American babies remains the highest in the US with SIDS, which coincides with the fact that sleeping on the stomach remains the highest for African-American babies. An interesting coincidence?
There are many reasons why my kids would not go to sleep. Gas in the gastrointestinal tract (simethicone drops), too hot (take the onesie off), too cold (put a warm sleeper on), feeling vulnerable (swaddle him to constrict him), etc. There are always more tricks to try before letting them sleep on their stomach.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Imagine a world where everyone constantly needs invasive medical procedures and is horribly handicapped. People have bones that can't hold their weight, so they must be strapped into robots to go anywhere. Nobody gets to have sex, because their bodies can't handle the stress. (babies come from machines) Most humans are heartless, literally, with machines hooked up to move the blood. Breathing is done via mechanical device. Dyalysis is universal. Diabeties is universal. Human powered motion is impossible for nearly everyone.
That is not a good future. It is the future though, if we do nothing to direct natual selection away from it.
SIDS is virtually unheard of in countries where the parents sleep with their infants. I hope that the treatment consists of telling the parents to put the child in their bed as opposed to some kind of drug therapy...
Twelve-and-three-quarter inches. Unyielding. This wand belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange.
Man, I was hoping it'd be Simian Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome. You know, monkey AIDS. Progress on that front would totally kick ass.
The truth is that these kids are just too lazy and undisciplined to do what's best for them (that is, to continue breathing). That's what happens when you don't beat your kids.
http://outcampaign.org/
Last I checked, the leading cause of such things was putting the infant in an adult bed with mom and dad, instead of a crib, and the second leading cause was parents who use drugs (not just illegal drugs, but also alcohol and especially tobacco and caffein). Or are they discounting all those as "not really SIDS, since we know a cause" and looking for additional, less common causes?
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
That is a future *assuming* that people who *don't* need invasive procedures somehow have selective pressures against them. The increased incidence of people living with disabilities or with defects correlates only to population growth above and beyond what would have happened otherwise if they all just died. Why in the world would the people who do not require excessive medical assistance die out? The tendency for a population that has reduced selection pressures is to grow a lot more including 'disabled' people if the environment allows. The 'healthy' people don't magically die off.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
In most probable circumstances, yes, a particular individual who would require delicate artificial to survive will likely not be the better adapted to a realistic environment. However, if your environment is sufficiently resource rich/technologically advanced to enable you to be more productive than you cost to keep alive, it's almost certainly worth it to keep you around rather than to let you die off. Let's say you are a bed-ridden person who needs food brought to you, but you are so damn brilliant you are able to drastically increase resource utilization efficiency or show a way to greater resource acquisition. It's worth it for that life span to keep them alive. If able to attract a mate and even produce an offspring that had the general physical capability of the perhaps not as brilliant parent, but the mental capability of the bedridden parent, there was a very short term payoff, genetically speaking, for keeping that person alive and successfully mating. Even if they didn't quite pay off in their generation, if their variation mentally was unique and they were able to pass it on to someone without being tied to the physical deficiency, it pays off.
Additionally, imagine someone born who can't process oxygen from air, but somehow can do so from water like a fish. In the current environment, them walking around with a water oxygenation system is expensive because operating in today's society is nearly impossible as it is mostly land based. Now you keep this 'defect' with expensive breathing apparatus around as this person's trait grows in coming generations (because society can afford to), and you end up with a population of less effective water-breathers, but still productive beyond what they cost. Now some cataclysm comes where the land of the planet gets much more evenly leveled very quickly, and everyone dies except those water breathers who can now take off their apparatus and begin again under water. This is an unlikely example, but you can probably adapt it as you see fit for various circumstances to show how intrinsic detriment is often relative.
Keep in mind also that, assuming you do not overextend your feasible sustainable resource utilization, those with artificial requirements to live are only a portion of the population, with the rest of the population having no reason to die out. Let's say resource exhaustion or some disaster that makes the artificial means unworkable. It means you die back to your original situation, where your population would have been about the same as (maybe even a bit larger than) if you had never bothered with those artificial means to begin with.
If a population's current circumstances provide for accepting the addition of a variation without exceeding sustainable resource consumption constraints, there is no reason to reject that addition.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Except you're oversimplifying the situation here...
Making the statement that all genetic defects are just a type of genetic diversity is incorrect. We can objectively say that some types of genetic defects are indeed quite bad, although there is a gradient between absolute 100% lethality and some impairment of 'wild type' biological function. The sickle cell anemia/malaria example is a good one, but the fact of the matter is that homozygous sickle cell carriers are royally screwed. (The heterozygotes don't have it that good either.)
Mutations arise in all of us at a relatively constant rate (and would even do so in clones), so no matter how hard we tried we could not eliminate diversity, short of reducing the population.
Given the current human population on earth, there's no real argument for maintaining a trait (if this is some hereditary condition) through medical intervention that would otherwise cause random infant death. (Other than the subjective feeling that babies are cute, and that if you're a carrier you don't want your own baby to die.) TNG references aside, the scenario you've presented under which a gene that kills you in your sleep could improve fitness is bad science fiction at best.
It's not magic, but it could be genetic drift
...that knowing is half the battle!
Crap I thought from the article title that this was about some sort of new Intrusion Detection System.
Incline worked great, but I have a great picture of her, having completely escaped the sleep positioner, the only thing remaining from her original "correct" position was her winter sleeping cap perfectly lined up. That's how she let us know when it was time to ditch the positioner and the cap.
Kids are funny.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock