Alarming Babies

A weapon against crib death

Sudden infant death syndrome is a killer that leaves no clues. Every year in the U.S., at least 8,000 babies die in their cribs with no discernible signs of distress. Crib death, as SIDS is commonly called, claims more babies between the ages of one month and one year than any other affliction. Doctors now believe that one cause is sleep apnea, the unexplained tendency of many babies to stop breathing while asleep. If that respiratory interruption continues for several minutes a baby can die of asphyxiation, unless a watchful parent rushes to shake the infant into breathing again.

A new crib alarm may aid those rescues. Tested since 1973 at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital, the device consists of an electrode belt strapped on a sleeping baby, and a nearby monitoring machine that blasts a 70-decibel alarm (about as loud as a smoke detector) if the baby stops breathing for 20 seconds or if its heart slows. Of 270 apnea-prone babies enrolled in the program, three died when the device failed to rouse their parents. Since then, the alarm has been made louder, and 60% of the babies have had attacks with no fatalities; 160 have graduated past the first-year danger zone.

Major problems remain. A first is cost: the alarm sells for $1,500; parent training sessions, social worker home visits and a 24-hour hospital team of doctor, nurse and alarm repairman can bring the final tab to a daunting $4,000. Moreover, many apnea-prone babies die from a first attack, before parents are aware of the need for medical help. Most discouraging, apnea is almost certainly not the sole cause of SIDS (one Boston specialist puts the incidence rate at anywhere from 5% to 90% of all SIDS cases), so the alarm can only be a stopgap measure. But it should at least cut the infant death toll.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.