JAMA serotonergic neurons

We have all done it, especially with our newborns: continually check on our sleeping baby to make sure he’s still breathing.  Thoughts about SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) contribute to any anxiety.  SIDS is defined as an unexplainable death of an infant less than one year old. The randomness of SIDS is part of what makes it so scary, but a new study may point to a possible cause.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and reported in WebMD, suggests that lower levels of the hormone serotonin may help explain why some infants fall victim to SIDS.  According to study researcher Hannah Kinney, MD, a professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School and a neuropathologist at Children’s Hospital in Boston, a low serotonin in the brain stem (which controls vital functions during sleep, such as breathing, heart rate and blood pressure) may help explain most of the deaths.  “It’s not going to explain all SIDS deaths,” she told WebMD, but “it will explain the majority.”

Researchers evaluated 35 infants who died from SIDS and found serotonin levels were 26% lower in the SIDS babies than in the babies who died of known causes.  Levels of binding to the serotonin receptors were also lower in the SIDS babies.

They said abnormal levels of serotonin might hamper an infant’s breathing, especially in challenging situations, such as breathing in too much exhaled carbon dioxide while sleeping face down.

“We have known for many years that placing infants to sleep on their backs is the single most effective way to reduce the risk of SIDS,” Dr. Alan Guttmacher, director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which funded the study.

“The current findings provide important clues to the biological basis of SIDS and may ultimately lead to ways to identify infants most at risk as well as additional strategies for reducing the risk of SIDS for all infants,” Guttmacher said in a statement.

Doctors eventually hope to use their discovery to screen babies for serotonin problems and find a way to protect them, says co-author David Paterson, also of Harvard and Children’s Hospital. Those developments are still years away, he says.

In the mean time, we can follow the doctors’ recommendations to lessen the likelihood of SIDS:  put babies to sleep on their backs, don’t leave loose bedding, pillows or toys in the crib, don’t over-dress the baby and avoid smoke and overheated rooms.

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