A new study reveals a link between sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and babies who live at higher altitudes.
SIDS occurs in babies that are less than a year old and the deaths are unexplainable even after investigation and autopsy. In the state of Colorado, the SIDS rate is 4.2 cases per 10,000 live births. But for infants that live above 8,000 feet, it increases to 7.9 per 10,000, according to Reuters.
“We hope that this study will make families residing at high altitude, and the physicians counseling them, increasingly vigilant about the known risk factors for SIDS in order to minimize risk,” said lead study author Dr. David Katz, a researcher at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora.
Across the nation, SIDS takes the lives of 4 babies out of every 10,000 live births. It is currently a leading cause of infant deaths according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Katz and his team studied the data of almost 400,000 babies born and deceased in the state of Colorado spanning from 2007 to 2012. Almost 80% of the babies in the study lived at altitudes below 6,000 feet and only 1.9% above 8,000 feet. The latter group of infants were found to have a 2.3 times greater risk of SIDS.
Pediatricians consistently urge parents to put their babies to sleep on their backs with no pillows, blankets or other soft objects in order to lower the risk of SIDS. These practices have been backed by public health officials in an official campaign called “Back to Sleep.”
There were records from the study that took place for the Back to Sleep campaign from 1990 to 2012 that the researchers also reviewed. There were 20 incidents of SIDS for every 10,000 live births at the beginning of the study which decrease to 5.7 per 10,000 at the end of the time frame.
“Although relatively few people in the U.S. reside at high altitudes, more than 63 million people worldwide live above 8,000 feet,” the researchers noted.
The researches have been lead to believe that while the study does not provide a direct connection to living at higher altitudes with the cause of SIDS, they do agree that the possibility that less oxygen in the air could lead to hypoxia.
“Hypoxia is a plausible linking causal factor, and has been demonstrated in infants residing at high altitude,” Katz said. He also added that more research is needed to better understand the possible causes of SIDS.
