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photo credit: Steve & Jemma Cople

New insight has emerged this month in relation to a key factor which may play a role in cot deaths.

Research by the European molecular biology laboratory in Italy agrees with similar findings in 2006 in the United States that a chemical imbalance in the brain of a baby or a young child may make them susceptible to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

A neurotransmitter, serotonin, (which is associated with mood) passes messages between brain cells. Research has shown that in mice with low levels of serotonin, over half the number of mice died very early in life at a similar age range at which human infants succumb to sudden infant death syndrome, roughly 1 month to one-year-old.

These mice had been genetically engineered to produce low levels of serotonin, and it was found that the effect of this was that the low levels of the neurotransmitter triggers sudden changes in heart rate and body temperature, which led to the sudden death of the mice.

Public awareness of sudden infant death syndrome has increased since the early 1990s especially in the United Kingdom where a public campaign was launched. Because of this awareness, the number of deaths in the UK have fallen by about 75%, however sadly on average around 300 babies still die suddenly each year.

The study revealed that the mice underwent a series of crises during early life in which there were sudden unpredictable drops in body temperature and heart rate, and many of the mice died during one of these crises. The researchers suspected that crises were triggered as the mice began to enter the transition stage from sleep to wakefulness.

Cornelius Gross, PhD of the laboratory in Rome commented that, “The similarity to SIDS is there is sudden death during a restricted period of early life — and it is caused by a change in the serotonin system.”

There are it should be borne in mind that this research was based on genetically engineered mice, and children who have succumbed to sudden infant death syndrome do not have this overactive gene, however, the study suggests that serotonin levels may be a key factor in their susceptibility.

More research is needed as to what contributes to low serotonin levels in human infants before any definite conclusions can be reached, how ever it is clear that low serotonin levels are now suspect. Previously low serotonin levels were not believed to be life-threatening.

If you have a young baby or child under one year old, then I think it would be very wise to have some sort of monitoring alarm system in place during their first year, and to pay attention where possible to them at times when they would regularly begin to awaken from periods of sleep.

Tags: sudden infant death syndrome, sids, cot death, cot deaths, serotonin



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