Serotonin could be to blame for SIDS

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Serotonin could be to blame for SIDS

Posted:

Feb 02, 2010 2:44 PM CST

Posted by Folz - email

(NBC) - Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is the leading cause of death

for babies under a year old with most SIDS deaths occurring between the

ages of 2 and 4 months.

The deaths come without warning, and for a long time without any known

cause.

Parents these days are told to put their newborn babies to sleep on

their backs to reduce the risk for SIDS.

The

Back To Sleep campaign has been successful, reducing the number of crib

deaths by about half since it began in the early 90's.

Still, thousands of seemingly healthy babies die in their sleep each

year.

"You

cannot tell a living baby is going to die of SIDS that night. There's

no marker," said Dr. Hannah Kinney of Children's Hospital Boston.

But now doctors at Children's Hospital Boston have uncovered a big clue

leading them to a likely cause for SIDS.

"We've come to focus on serotonin," said Dr. Kinney.

Dr.

Kinney, along with a team of doctors and scientists has found that SIDS

babies have low levels of serotonin in their brainstems.

Sheraton

helps regulate breathing, heart rate and blood pressure. Too little

could impair those functions especially during sleep.

"Something about sleep unmasks the defect when the baby is stressed,"

said Kinney.

Stress, like re-breathing carbon dioxide when they're sleeping on their

tummies makes affected babies vulnerable.

Researchers

say infants with normal brainstem serotonin levels would be able to

wake up long enough to turn their heads and breathe fresh air.

The

long-term goal is to develop a test to identify which babies have this

serotonin defect and then try to prevent it altogether.

Some pregnant women take antidepressant drugs called SSRIs that affect

serotonin levels in the mother.

But there is no conclusive research on whether those drugs impact

developing brainstems.

Doctors say pregnant women prescribed such medication should not stop

taking it based on this study.

What expecting mothers should forego, are alcohol and cigarettes.