Every year, many parents across the globe experience losing a seemingly perfectly healthy infant for reasons no-one really knows.
And even though guidelines for safe sleep has made the statistics for cot death – or sudden infant death syndrom, as the official term is – go down, medical experts have still not been able to fully paint a picture of
why it is that sometimes, an up until now thriving baby can be put to bed one night and never wake up again.
However, now scientists reckon they could be moving closer to having
an answer to this question, after discovering a brain protein which prevents the fatal condition.
According to a new study, published recently in PLOS ONE, the chemical, known as Substance P, is lacking in babies who die of sudden infant death syndrome and could explain the danger of sleeping face down. According to the researchers, Substance P helps control head and neck movement and plays a key role in the brain's control of breathing, heart function and the responce to oxygen deprivation.
The new findings were based on studies of 55 cases of SIDS in the US, and this is what Dr Fiona Bright, from the University of Adelaide, had to say: "For a long time we have known sleeping in the face down position is a risk factor for SIDS. A normal infant, with regular levels of Substance P, would be able to remove themselves from that environment if they experience low oxygen.
This changes in babies lacking in Substance P, however.
"Because this chemical is decreased in the brain, SIDs babies are unable to move themselves, turn their head or neck and we believe the are unable to remove themselves from that dangerous environment and alert their parents they' are experiencing low oxygen."
While there is still more research to be done into these findings, experts are hopeful that it might soon be possible to perform a test on babies to determine whether or not they have the protective protein, ensuring that new parents could take extra care if it was missing.
