REVIEW ARTICLE
Sudden infant death syndrome. Review of infant and environmental stress
factors on survival
André Kahn 1, José Groswasser 1, Patricia Franco 1, Bernard Dan 1,
Sonia Scaillet 1, Ineko Kato 2, Toshiko Sawaguchi 3, Igor Kelmanson 4
1
Pediatric Sleep Unit, University Children's Hospital of Brussels, Free University of
Brussels, Belgium
2
Department of Pediatrics, Nagoya City University Medical School, Nagoya, Japan
3
Department of Legal Medicine, Tokyo Women’s Medical University School of Medicine,
Tokyo, Japan
4
St Petersburg State Pediatric Medical Academy, St Petersburg, Russia
Abstract
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. [J Pediatr Neurol 2005; 3(1): 61-62].
Key words: infant, sleep, sudden infant death syndrome, apnea.