August 2024: In researching for Mark Addison Roe’s story, I believe the exact mechanism that is responsible for most cases of SIDS is due a sudden anemia or drop in hemoglobin that causes these episodes of hypoxia and hypoxemia.

Hemoglobin is a protein in red blood cells that uses iron atoms to bind to oxygen and this is how our tissues (like our brain) receive oxygen from our blood. Newborns are born with high amounts of fetal hemoglobin (fHb) which are slowly replaced by adult hemoglobin (aHb) by about 6 months of age. As fHb falls, all infants experience a drop (or nadir) in total Hb concentration around 6-10 weeks of age. This is known as physiologic anemia of infancy. The drop is more dramatic in premature infants, compared to full term infants. This may be why premature infants are at a higher risk of SIDS.

Unbeknownst to most parents, vaccination and infection, maternal anemia, and smoking can cause significant drops in an infant’s hemoglobin. If this happens during an infant’s nadir, or period of low hemoglobin, this could cause repeated episodes of hypoxia. Hypoxia is a condition that occurs when the body or a part of the body doesn’t have enough oxygen.

Vaccines were found to cause a significant drop in hemoglobin days 9-14 post-vaccination of >1g/dL in 9% of infants studied. Infants who are premature, low birth weight, male, African American, exposed to smoking, or had a recent infection are at an increased risk of anemia during this time, and other times. Incidentally, these are risk factors for SIDS.

It is clear that SIDS and physiologic anemia and low hemoglobin are causally related.

What does this mean? It means SIDS is preventable.

1. Avoid vaccines during physiologic anemia of infancy which can last from 6 weeks to past 6 months.
2. Check hemoglobin after an illness, before and after vaccines, and when infant displays signs of anemia, especially if your infant is at risk of anemia.
3. Breastfeed: breastmilk contains a more bioavailable form of iron and prevents infections, by providing passive immunity to infant.
4. Don’t smoke around baby or when pregnant.
5. Delayed cord clamping is associated with better iron status, higher hemoglobin, and reduced rates of anemia, compared to immediate cord clamping.
6. If your infant is over 1, avoid cow’s milk during times of infection or around vaccination (cow’s milk inhibits iron absorption, thus causing anemia.)
7. Don’t use water that contains nitrites (well water) to prepare infant formula.

Please read this article to learn more.

• Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS, is the leading cause of death in infants from 1 month of age to under 1 year.
• About 1,300 infants die every year of SIDS.
• SIDS is part of SUID, or Sudden Unexpected Infant Deaths, which includes SIDS, Accidental Suffocation and Strangulation in Bed, and Unknown, which altogether totals 3,500 deaths in the United States each year.
• 90% of SIDS occurs before 6 months of age, with a peak between 2 and 4 months of age.
• Since the late 1990’s, the SUID rate has decreased only 4% despite increased awareness and numerous changes to parenting and caregiving.
• SIDS is a diagnosis of exclusion.
• Infants have many pathological findings including intrathoracic petechiae, heavy congested lungs, brains, liquid unclotted blood in their hearts, empty bladders, cardiac and brainstem lesions.
• SIDS has a strong temporal association to vaccines, which are given to infants during the peak ages of SIDS.
• SIDS peaks during physiologic anemia of infancy, where an infants’s hemoglobin levels drop to their lowest point, or nadir.
• Vaccination causes a sudden drop in hemoglobin, when coupled with this inherent vulnerability could be deadly. Thus, SIDS is due to a sudden anemia. I’m calling it Mark’s anemia, after the baby who brought my attention to it.
• Risk factors for SIDS include: prematurity, low birth rate, twin, male, anemia, formula feeding, overwrapping and overheating, African American, nicotine exposure, drug use in parent, prone sleeping position, sleeping on sofa, recent doctor visit, mild illness prior to death, NICU admission.
• Countries with lower SIDS rate vaccinate infants later, avoiding the nadir of physiologic anemia of infancy.
• Japan has a high rate of bedsharing, and doesn’t vaccinate infants younger than 3 months of age, and those vaccines are not given intramuscularly but are given subcutaneously (as it’s again Japan law), and has one of the lowest SIDS rates in the world.
• Iceland, another country with one of the lowest SIDS rates in the world, also doesn’t vaccinate until after 3 months of age.
• Studies that assert that ‘vaccines halve the risk of SIDS’ admit that healthy vaccinee effect may be the reason why SIDS infants appear to be vaccinated less often. Importantly, when sleep environment and recent illness are controlled for, there is no protective effect observed from vaccination.
• This could be a problem of misdiagnosis, as some SIDS may be due to suffocation or overlaying, but others could be dying from this anemia as vaccination, infection and inflammation can each lower hemoglobin. A premature, low birth weight infant who is exposed to nicotine daily and formula fed can from a hypoxia due to anemia, just as a full term breastfed infant who died shortly after vaccination could be dying from the same sudden anemia, as vaccination also causes a sudden drop in hemoglobin.
• No study ever looked for anemia in relation to SIDS, as postmortem total hemoglobin concentration cannot be assessed.
• SIDS autopsies do not look for anemia, do not test hemoglobin, do not examine bone marrow.

Once called cot death or crib death, the term ‘Sudden Infant Death Syndrome’ or SIDS was proposed in 1963 and 1969 at two international conferences to focus on the etiology of sudden infant death syndrome. The sudden death of apparently well infants and toddlers during a sleep period had been increasing in incidence since the 1940s.

In 1958, Jed and Louise Roe’s 6-month-old son Mark Addison Roe was found dead in his crib just two weeks after his doctor gave him “a routine injection” for diphtheria, tetanus and whopping cough, as well as his first polio shot.

The autopsy came back with acute bronchial pneumonia, even though Mark showed no signs of illness. His parents soon formed the Mark Addison Roe Foundation, which was later renamed the SIDS Foundation. 

Midcentury Push For Vaccinating Infants

In 1944, the AAP recommended routine pertussis vaccination. In 1948, the DPT vaccine was introduced as a triple antigen injection in one syringe. In 1962, Congress passed the Vaccination Assistance Act of 1962, an “intensive community vaccination program” to vaccinate all children against poliomyelitis, diphtheria, whooping cough, and tetanus particularly those under the age of 5 years old.

The following year in 1963 an unexplained cluster of crib deaths occurred in Philadelphia in the month of June, which would be unexpected as crib deaths had a predictable seasonality: more common in the winter, less common in the Summer. Could this have been a “hot lot” of vaccine?

After 1963 we see an unexplained rise in infant deaths being attributed to the Ill-Defined category of the US vital statistics. This is prior to the addition of the SIDS term to the ICD, International Classification of Diseases (which occurred in 1974). Before the label was even accepted, deaths attributed to this Ill Defined category were increasing:

Infant Mortality Climbs Inexplicably in 1960s in the “Ill-Defined and Unknown Causes”

Above is a graph of infant mortality rates attributed to the “Ill-Defined and Unknown Causes” from the US vital statistics. After 1900, unexplained infant deaths declined rapidly. However, in the mid-1960s deaths attributed to this classification began to increase which led to the formal recognition of SIDS, or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, in 1969.

In 1972, Congress held a hearing Rights of Children where experts and parents submitted testimonials regarding SIDS. Many of the parent testimonials related that their infant or child was recently vaccinated. The hearing included letters directly from parents where they shared details of their story.

This mother brings up a great point, her child was older, 13 months and had just had a vaccine shot 6 days before she died. What are the odds of this close temporal association in a 13 month old were vaccines not causally related to at least some cases of sudden death?

But there are more…Here a mother describes that her infant was just seen by their doctor on November 10th, just 3 days before the baby was found dead. While she doesn’t mention vaccines, she said it was the routine “well baby” check, which is an exam where vaccines are routinely given.

And there are more. More testimonials from this 1972 Hearing about Sudden Infant Death where parents recounted the story of their young infants death and it includes more references to “check-ups.”

Here is a little 2 month old baby girl. She had just been seen by her doctor for a check-up and she was alright. Her mother describes that she was restless and cried all night; that she slept for two days. Mother speculated whether the flu could have affected her baby, but she didn’t mention any shots. Parents (and doctors) were completely blinded to the negative effects that vaccine injections could have. But it’s hard to ignore.

It’s so tragic that such a theme in these personal testimonies is the sequence of events: that death follows this “check-up.” It was right there before our government in 1972 and no one asked the right questions. No one suspected the vaccines? Or those voices were drowned out.

This 3 month old was due for a check-up. His doctor was delighted with him; he was a healthy youngster, according to his doctor. Why then would this baby stop breathing and die the night after he went to this check-up?

Back in the 1960s, vaccines were often given to infants in a different vaccine schedule than today. Vaccines were often given closer together, around one month apart: at 6 weeks to 2 months, 3 months and 4 to 5 months.

SIDS has long been said to have a peak incidence from 2 months to 4 months of age, which are ages when most infants get vaccine injections.

Here is a sample vaccine card:

In 1973, the ICD code for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome would be added within the classification of “Ill-Defined and Unknown Causes,” and SIDS deaths would be formally tracked from here onward, however, this is the same category of death that most of these unexplained cot deaths would have been attributed to prior to this date, unless they were allocated to Accidental Suffocation or Bronchopneumonia.

Between August 1978 and March 1979, 11 infants died in Tennessee within 8 days of their DPT vaccine, 9 of which had vaccines from the same lot number of Wyeth vaccine. Four of the 11 died within 24 hours. This would be known as the Tennessee SIDS Cluster and would lead to increases in vaccine hesitancy, reduced vaccine uptake, and eventually to phasing out and eventual complete removal of the DPT vaccine from the US pediatric vaccine schedule from 1992 to 1996, which is precisely the same years as we observe a marked reduction in SIDS mortality.

• If SIDS was here all along, like many believe, why did unexplained infant deaths increase in the 1960s?
• If vaccines have nothing to do with SIDS, why did SIDS increase when more infants were vaccinated, and decrease when a proven dangerous vaccine was removed from the US pediatric schedule and replaced with a less reactogenic one (DTaP)?
• If SIDS is not related to vaccines, why do countries like Japan and Iceland who give fewer vaccines, and who only vaccinate infants older than 3 months of age have a much lower rate of SIDS rate than countries who give more vaccines, and vaccinate infants as early as birth?
• If SIDS is not related to vaccines, why do so many parent testimonials include information that the child was recently vaccinated, even when they were vaccinated off-schedule, or at older ages?

SIDS is a catch-all term

Naming and defining and tracking this syndrome in the 1970s was necessary to secure funding for the research, however the term and diagnostic classification became a catch-all for unexplained, undetermined, unknown deaths, which would then make it extremely difficult to study.

For decades, researchers tirelessly hunted for “the cause” that could explain most deaths, largely assuming that all infants are dying from the same exact mechanism, but smaller subsets have been proposed to cause a small portion of SIDS, such as cardiomyopathies, ion channelopathies or metabolic disorders.

The triple risk model, introduced in 1972 and revised in 1994 by Filiano and Kinney, suggests that the lethal mechanisms in SIDS are likely to be multifactorial, and that SIDS may occur when certain risk factors coincide:

1. vulnerable infant is exposed to an…

2. external stressor during a…

3. critical developmental period…

The triple risk model is broad enough to acknowledge there could be many causes of SIDS, or many external stressors, without having to pinpoint any of them. In and of itself, it does not refute vaccination, and in fact, for a vulnerable infant vaccination may be a lethal event.

Additionally, observational studies which look at big groups of SIDS infants and compares them to even bigger groups of healthy control infants are similar not able to sift out what these unique stressors are for the individual infant. While many infants who later died of SIDS were exposed to high amounts of nicotine in and after utero, others may have had fatal toxic assaults in the way of vaccinations.

In the mid-1990s, after an uptick in sick infants with similar characteristics, an Ohio coroner reviewed autopsies for 117 deaths originally attributed to SIDS and found similar lung tissue damage in 5% of SIDS cases–meaning that a small portion of infants were being misdiagnosed as SIDS when they really had an undiagnosed toxic and fatal black mold exposure. Even today, we can see that SIDS rates, as well as infant mortality rates are much higher is states with more rain (and more of this mold).

In 2017,  a post-mortem whole-exome analysis of 161 SIDS infants found genetic diseases may account for as much as 20% of deaths: channelopathies (9%), cardiomyopathies (7%), and metabolic diseases (1%). Around 10% of SIDS carry significant genetic variants in long QT syndrome genes.

Another small portion of SIDS infants may be dying due to infection and an overreactive immune response to infection, to any number of pathogens or antigens in the environment.

Vaccines and SIDS

Vaccination has long been suspected as having a causal (not just temporal) connection to sudden infant death, as deaths in infants do occur shortly after vaccination, regardless of the infant or child’s age. 

Recent survey of post-vaccination autopsies have found around 22% of infants who died suddenly and unexpectedly and had initiated vaccination, had received a vaccine within the past 7 days.

A survey of SUDC, Sudden Unexpected Death in Childhood, found that 13% of SUDC cases had received a vaccine within 2 weeks of their death.

Another way to say that is:

1 in 7 children who die of SUDC had a vaccine within the 2 weeks of their sudden death

As you will see below, in the case-control section, many SIDS cases from the earlier case-control studies never actually begun vaccination, or died before vaccines would be routinely administered, ie. before 2 months of age. Thus, the often-quoted conclusions that vaccines ‘reduce or halve the risk of SIDS’ are completely meaningless and non-applicable when SIDS is functions as an umbrella term, and young vulnerable infants with a great deal of external stressors die soon after birth. A vaccine given at 2 months couldn’t logically prevent a death that already occurred before 2 months, but that is the exact conclusions from the studies: These are the loose ends in research, and the inadequacies of the case-control design for a “syndrome”, which is not “a disease.”

Research

1831

Gaitskell, Joseph Ashley. “Account of the Sudden Death of an Infant, in Reference to Medical Jurisprudence.“ 1831 Full text. 

1933

Madsen, T. “Vaccination against whooping cough”. 1933

1946

Jacob Werne, M.D. and Irene Garrow, M.D. “FATAL ANAPHYLACTIC SHOCK Occurrence in Identical Twins Following Second Injection of Diphtheria Toxoid and Pertussis Antigen” 1946

Gardner, E. “Rapid death following injection of antitetanic serum” 1946 [See above image]

1947

Jacob Werne, M.D. and Irene Garrow, M.D. “Sudden Deaths of Infants Allegedly Due to Mechanical Suffocation“. 1947

1948

White, LLR. “Sudden death in infancy.” 1948 Full Text

1952

Adebahr, G. “[Death by shock in first preventive subcutaneous injection of tetanus serum]” 1952

1953

Jacob Werne, M.D. and Irene Garrow, M.D. “Sudden apparently unexplained death during infancy. I.Pathologic findings in infants found dead.” 1953

Jacob Werne, M.D. and Irene Garrow, M.D. “Sudden apparently unexplained death during infancy. II. Pathologic findings in infants observed to die suddenly.” 1953

Jacob Werne, M.D. and Irene Garrow, M.D. “Sudden apparently unexplained death during infancy. III. Pathologic findings in infants dying immediately after violence, contrasted with those after sudden apparently unexplained death”. 1953

1959

Handforth, C.P. “Sudden Unexpected Death in Infants” 1959 full text: sudden_death_handforth

1964

Vries, E. DE. “Sudden Death Following Smallpox Vaccination in Very Young Children” 1964 [Article in Dutch]

1965

Mahnke, PF. “[SUDDEN DEATH IN CHILDHOOD AND PREVIOUS VACCINATION]”

1968

Lane, J. Michael, et al. “Complications of Smallpox Vaccination, 1968–National Surveillance in the United States.“ 1968

1974

Kulenkampff, M. “Neurological complications of pertussis inoculation” 1974

1975

Watson, Elizabeth. “A Two-Year Study of Sudden Death in Infancy in Inner North London.” Full Text 2yearstudySIDS

1977

Nigro, et al. “NEAR-MISS” SUDDEN INFANT DEATH SYNDROME (SIDS) WITH LACTIC ACIDOSIS. 1977

1979

Godber, G. “Deaths of Infants After Triple Vaccine” 1979 FULL TEXT DeathsofInfants_triplevaccine

1982

Bernier, RH. “Diphtheria-tetanus toxoids-pertussis vaccination and sudden infant deaths in Tennessee” 1982 Full Text: BernierSIDS

1983

Baraff, L J., et al. “Possible temporal association between diphtheria – tetanus toxoid – pertussis vaccination and sudden infant death syndrome.” 1983

Fulganiti, V. “Sudden infant death syndrome, diphtheria-tetanus toxoid-pertussis vaccination and visits to the doctor.” 1983 FULL TEXT Fulginiti_SIDS1983

1985

Aubourg, P., et al. “Infantile status epilepticus as a complication of ‘near-miss’ sudden infant death.” 1985

1987

Hoffman, H.J., et al. “Diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis immunization and sudden infant death: results of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Cooperative Epidemiological Study of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome risk factors.” 1987 [Case Control study]

Schwartz, Peter J. “The quest for the mechanisms of the sudden infant death syndrome: doubts and progress.” 1987. Full Text The quest for the mechanisms of the sudden infant death syndrome- doubts and progress

1988

Flahault, A. “Sudden Death Infant Syndrome and Diphtheria/Tetanus/Poliomyelitis Immunisation” 1988 FULL TEXT Flahault_SIDS1988

1989

M H Bouvier-Colle. “Sudden infant death and immunization: an extensive epidemiological approach to the problem in France–winter 1986” 1989

Constandinou, J E C., et al. “Hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy after near miss sudden infant death syndrome.” 1989

1990

Golden, GS. “Pertussis vaccine and injury to the brain”  1990

1991

Wentz, Kim. “Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis Vaccine and Serious Neurologic Illness: An Updated Review of the Epidemiologic Evidence“ 1991

2001

Jonville-Bera, Annie-Pierre, et al. “Sudden unexpected death in infants under 3 months of age and vaccination status – a case-control study.” 2001 doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2125.2001.00341.x.

2005

Brotherton, et al. “Probability of coincident vaccination in the 24 or 48 hours preceding sudden infant death syndrome death in Australia” 2005

2006

McGaffey, Hazel L., et al. Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) may be a result of shock, metabolic acidosis, and loss of homeostasis, according to findings presented here at the annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Pathology. 2006

2015

Kalyani Srinivas, G. Preeti, Sujatha Pasula. “DPT immunization and SIDS”. 2015

2019

Crandall, Laura Gould, et al. “Potential Role of Febrile Seizures and Other Risk Factors Associated With Sudden Deaths in Children.“ 2019 doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.2739   Study here: crandall_2019_oi_190122.    Tables here: SUDC_vaccines  

Osawa, M., et al. “Sudden Infant Death After Vaccination: Survey of Forensic Autopsy Files.” 2019

2021

Miller, Neil Z. “Vaccines and sudden infant death: An analysis of the VAERS database 1990–2019 and review of the medical literature” 2021

CASE-CONTROL STUDIES

Case-control studies are often used to determine whether an exposure is associated with an outcome. In this case, researchers take a group of SIDS “cases” and compare them to living “controls”. To effectively be able to determine if an exposure “vaccination” is related to outcome “SIDS”, the controls need to be as closely matched as possible, and they must be at risk of the outcome, SIDS. For example, using a man as a control for a woman when we want to find out if tampons cause cancer, would not be a suitable control, as men don’t have vaginas.

So this brings up the question: Are all infants equally at risk of SIDS? Or even more specifically, are all infants at risk of vaccine-induced SIDS?

If only about 1 or 2 infants out of 1,000 live births every year die in this manner, we have around 998 infants who don’t. We have very well-defined risk factors, such as prematurity, smoking exposure, which increase those risks, as well as some very specific brain abnormalities (hypoplasia of the arcuate nucleus) we have identified–it is apparent that not all infants are equally at risk of SIDS, or vaccine-induced SIDS. The vast majority of infants are able to survive toxic exposures, such as nicotine or vaccination, and thus are selectively able to survive, and therefore are not suitable controls to SIDS cases.

It’s no surprise then that these case-controls come to the conclusion that DTP vaccine is not associated with SIDS, or “immunization” is not associated with SIDS, because:

A. The majority of infants survive vaccination, and SIDS is technically rare, and…

B. In these case-controls, the majority of the unvaccinated SIDS cases were unvaccinated because they died before vaccines were routinely given, ie. at age 2 months.

So including a high proportion of SIDS too young to be vaccinated, could never actually logically translate into the conclusion “vaccines reduce the risk for SIDS”, but they made it work. Even though, it really wouldn’t.

For example, in the case-control study by Fleming, et al (2001), 93 of the 154 unvaccinated SIDS cases died before reaching 2 months of age, before vaccines were given. However, the authors argue that vaccines halve the risk of SIDS, when they compare them to living controls who were vaccinated and didn’t die.

The controls in Fleming, et al (2001) are extremely different than the cases: 19% of SIDS infants were <37 weeks at birth compared to 5% of controls. The graph above is Fleming’s CESDI study, so you can see exactly how different the cases were from their controls.

There are also important distinctions between the vaccinated SIDS and unvaccinated SIDS that need to be accounted for: 26% (16/61) of unvaccinated SIDS infants over 2 months of age were ill and scored a >7 on the Baby Check, suggesting medical care was required, compared to 16% (5/31) of the SIDS infants who died within 2 weeks of vaccination. What this means is an unvaccinated SIDS infant was 62% more likely to have signs of infection that warranted medical attention, compared to recently vaccinated SIDS.

Another very disturbing finding is Fleming performed a closely matched subgroup:

We selected the infants with normal birth weight (>2500 g) and gestational age (⩾37 completed weeks) who had had a normal Apgar score (>7), no history of an apparent life threatening event, never been admitted to either a special care baby unit or hospital, and not moved house more than once in the past year. Preserving the age matching, we chose one control infant matched for social class (within one stratum), maternal age (within five years), and parity (within one child). The resultant comparison yielded 60 SIDS infants and 60 closely matched controls. In this subgroup 58% (35) of the SIDS infants were immunised, compared with 63% (38) of the controls. At age 3 months or older, the corresponding figures were 86% (25/29) and 97% (31/32).

Within his own data, he missed or overlooked a serious finding. In this closely matched comparison, SIDS cases under 3 months of age were 52% more likely to be vaccinated than controls: 32% (10/31) of the SIDS infants were vaccinated, compared with 21% (7/28) of the controls.

This is what happens when you closely match, and control for confounding: you see the association. Otherwise, they know how to pick controls, or they only look at one vaccine at a time, which washes away any association they don’t want responsibility for.

Grouping vaccinated and unvaccinated, sick and well, premature and full term into one classification was a recipe for disaster. Comparing this especially diverse group of infants to healthy living controls selectively able to survive vaccination, to then assess effect of vaccine exposure should be a crime.

SIDS is a catch-all name for deaths from a particularly vulnerable and fragile group of infants whose cause was not determined at autopsy. Within this context, many deaths after vaccination in previously healthy infants are misdiagnosed as SIDS.

Case-controls studies compare SIDS infants “cases” to healthier infants who selectively survive “controls”, to then conclude that vaccines do not cause SIDS.

Yet all they really proved was that vaccines do not kill all infants, which we already knew.

1987

Hoffman, H.J., et al. “Diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis immunization and sudden infant death: results of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Cooperative Epidemiological Study of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome risk factors.” 1987

1994

Gale, JL. “Risk of serious acute neurological illness after immunization with diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccine. A population-based case-control study” 1994.  Full Text

1996

Carvajal, A. et al. “DTP vaccine and infant sudden death syndrome. Meta-analysis” article in spanish. Specifically only looking at DTP vaccine.

1999

Leach, CE. Blair, Peter J. Fleming, et al. “Epidemiology of SIDS and explained sudden infant deaths. CESCI SUDI Research Group.”

2001

Fleming, Peter J. “The UK accelerated immunisation programme and sudden unexpected death in infancy: case-control study”

2017

Huang, Wan-Ting. “Vaccination and unexplained sudden death risk in Taiwanese infants” 2017

“A pooled analysis showed significant risk within 2 days of receiving DTwP in female infants (incidence rate ratio 1.66, 95% confidence interval 1.05-2.60).”

“Being unvaccinated and recent receipt of DTwP in female infants was significantly associated with SUID;”

SIDS is an umbrella term:

An infant who dies and is diagnosed with SIDS tends to have certain characteristics, ie. risk factors, but paradoxically, also can be devoid of those risk factors and still get the diagnosis.

Is SIDS a diagnostic dustbin? Is it an umbrella term? Are we missing out on the ’causes’ because we are grouping together different deaths under the same term?

The Contradictions

• SIDS can happen to infants who sleep on their tummies, face down, and who sleep alone on their backs.
• Occurs more often in boys, but also happens in girls.
• occurs in vaccinated babies, including recently vaccinated and fully up-to-date babies, as well as unvaccinated babies.
• More often in formula fed babies, but also happens to breastfed babies.
• More often to smoking parents, but happens to non-smoking parents.
• More often in drug using parents, but also happens to families with no substance abuse.
• Babies who sleep with their parents in bed, and to babies who sleep alone in their cribs.
• Japan has a very high rate of bed-sharing with infants AND an extremely low SIDS rate.
• Japan also doesn’t vaccinate infants younger than 3 months of age.
• More often to families of low socio-economic status, but also happens to higher income families.
• More often in African-American and American-Indian infants, but also happens in other ethnicities.
• More common in premature babies, low birth weight infants, but also happens to full-term babies.
• Once had more pronounced seasonal distribution, but now it happens in the spring and summer just as often as fall and winter.
• Has a pronounced age peak of 2-4 months, but happens to all ages: 2 month olds, 4 month olds, 6 month olds, 15 months old and 20 month olds.
• It happens to babies with a recent respiratory illness, and also perfectly healthy or well babies.