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You’ve heard of SIDS, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, but a significant number of toddlers are also victims of sudden death. The older babies and children are said to be victims of SUDS or Sudden Unexplained Death Syndrome. NYU neurologists now report a preliminary case study of 7 children for whom home video recordings were available to document their last sleep periods. The group included 4 boys and three girls varying in age from 13 to 27 months.

Each of the videos revealed a period of seizures preceding the time when the child stopped breathing. Four of the seven children appeared to survive for 2.5 minutes or more following their convulsion. Six of the 7 children ended up face down.

The authors also reviewed the cases of 248 children 5 years or younger with unexplained deaths but no video. Of the group 29.4% had a history of febrile seizures. Other studies have shown that these young children with unexplained sudden death frequently had a family history of such seizures or an upper respiratory infection within 2 days of death.

The advent of commonplace child video monitoring may now help pediatric investigators begin to unravel the causes of sudden unexplained infant and toddler death. In the case of older babies and children, there is little existing information as 99% of reported research involves SIDS or sudden death in those under one year. The NYU pediatricians are helping to change that.

https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000208038

#seizures #SIDS #SUDS #unexplained #pediatric #deaths #video #monitoring

Seizures May Trigger Sudden Toddler Death

Dr. Howard Smith Reports