Sudden' Death or Alleged Accidental Suffocation in Babies

Head covering - a major modifiable risk factor for sudden infant death syndrome: a systematic review

“…SIDS infants are sometimes found face down and sometimes under the bedclothes, but results from New Zealand suggest infants found both face down and head covered are less common 45. The early claims by Woolley4 and Bowden5 that a child cannot be suffocated by “ordinary bedclothes” has been described as anecdotal55 56 but has yet to be refuted. Permeability tests for airflow through various bedding materials suggest little resistance.…”

“…The assumption of smothering was criticised at the time, not least for the lack of evidence when apportioning blame to parent–infant care practices 3. Post mortem investigation of suspected asphyxial deaths were then, as now, largely inconclusive and anecdotal reports of attempts to reproduce the same conditions using ordinary bedding among live infants failed to induce hypoxaemia 4 5. Neither did the emerging epidemiological profile of SIDS deaths from the United States fit with the theory of suffocation as the peak age of deaths was not during the vulnerable first few weeks after birth but at 3 months of age and although there was a winter preponderance the highest incidence occurred among the black population in the warmer southern states where infants used fewer or lighter bedclothes 4…”

Sudden infant death: Results from forensic medicine

“…Nach Ve~ffentliehungen yon Paltauf [21,22]., einem Wiener Reehtsmediziner, wurde in tier Literatur der Begriff des Status thymieo-lymphatieus verwandt, aueh wenn er diesen Begriff in seinen Publikatiohen zur ,,Konstitutionsanomalie" nieht benutzte. Von Templeman [29], einem schottisehen Polizeiarzt, w-arden die ersten epiderniologisehen Daten fiber pl6tzlieh verstorbene Kinder zusammengesteUt, mad sehlieBlieh warenes Pathologen, die in den 40er ua d 50er lahren dieses Jahrhunderts ver~t~rkt der These des Erstiekens widerspraehen [3,32]. Sie zeigten, dab ein Tell der Kinder, die einer Erstiekung zugeordnet warden, definierte Erkrankungen aufwiesen, die den Tod vemtinftig erklgren konnten.…”