| [ Characteristics of the Clinico-Pathology
of SIDS ] |
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The cause of SIDS has been still uncertain.
Since the risk factors for this syndrome
and the BTS campaign were announced, it was
reported that the incidence of SIDS decreased
remarkably in Western countries. However
in Japan, the incidence of SIDS has decreased
very slowly. It is doubtful why the "over-heating"
was exclluded from risk factors for SIDS
.About this exclusion it was explained from
the results of epidemiological investigations
on SIDS by the MHW Research Group.
Nevertheless, about the cause of death
with
SIDS in the epidemiological surveys
and autopsy
findings (showing below), it is seemed
that
the temperature is the most important
cause.
Those findings suggest that the characteristics
of this syndrome may have relevance
to the
thermoregulation mechanism (either
thermogenesis
or thermolysis) of infants. |
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| [ Characteristics of SIDS ] |
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Death during sleep. |
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Age: more frequently in infants aged below
1 year, with a peak in the 4th
month of life. |
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Season: more cases in winter than in summer. |
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More cases at high temperature environment. |
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More cases in infants wearing excessive clothes
(caps, gloves, socks, etc) and bedclothes. |
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More cases during sleeping in a prone position. |
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More infants with hyperthermia, although
time has passed after death. |
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Sweating is noted. |
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Blood: dark-red fluid blood, and hypernatremia. |
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Small intestine: tissue with character of
heatstroke is observed
in the
mucosa of the small intestine. |
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| Purpose of This Study |
| From my experience of a near miss of SIDS
(an infant stopped his breathing in hot bath
at the temperature of 43℃) and the epidemiological
and autopsy findings above, some relations
between SIDS and an infant's hyperthermia(heat
stroke) could be considered. Therefore, central
and peripheral deep body temperatures of
infants were begun to study in various environments.
According to those results, it could be clarified
that the over-heating (heat stroke) is one
of the causes of SIDS and that the reason
why the prone-sleeping is dangerous for infants. |
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| [ Why is over-heating a risk factor for SIDS? ] |
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Several researches have been studied based
on my date and analized the influence of
the nursing environment temperature on infant's
thermoregulations. These studies clarified
the cause of SIDS as follows.
Despite changes of environmental temperature,
infants can maintain their body temperature
constantly. The mechanism of balancing the
body temperature is known to be thermogenesis
and thermolysis. However, if either thermogenesis
or thermolysis is broken, the mechanism of
the body temperature of homeothermal animal
will go into a dangerous condition. In order
to clarify the reason why healthy infants
have "heat storoke" during their
sleep, and why "heat stroke" causes
SIDS, a new hypothesis below was set up by
forcusing on the mechanism of thermogenesis
and thermolysis of infants. |
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