Essay on The Continuing Mystery of SIDS

Sudden infant syndrome (SIDS) is a sudden and unexpected death of a healthy infant usually less than one year of age. Most of the deaths occur under 6 months of age, with the majority occurring under 4 months of age. SIDS can be caused by can by caused by physical factors or sleep environmental factors. Physical factors associated with SIDS are brain abnormalities, low birth weight, and respiratory infection. Brain abnormalities causes the portion of the brain that controls breathing and arousal from sleep doesn’t work properly. Respiratory infections can

Respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) is a breathing disorder that affects newborns. RDS rarely occurs in full-term infants. The disorder is more common in premature infants born about 6 weeks or more before their due dates. It usually develops in the first 24 hours after birth. RDS is more common in premature infants because their lungs aren't able to make enough surfactant. Surfactant is a liquid that is produced from the alveolar type two cells and coat the inside of the lungs. It breaks up the surface tension found within in the alveoli. Without enough surfactant, the alveoli will stick together and the lungs will collapse, which means the infant has to work much harder to be able to breathe. He or she might not be able to breathe in enough oxygen to support the body's organs. The lack of oxygen can damage the baby's brain and other organs if proper treatment isn't given. According to an article titled “What is the Respiratory Distress Syndrome” by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institution, states that “In fact, nearly all infants born before 28 weeks of pregnancy develop RDS (2012, p. 1).” This paper will discuss the pathophysiologic problems,

At birth the infant presented with signs of Respiratory Distress Syndrome (RDS). The APGAR score was 2 at one minute and 7 at 5 minutes. Resuscitation of the infant included positive pressure ventilation at 60%

Scientists and researchers have discovered a rare genetic mutation that may be in charge of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), or “Cot Death.” This mutation is said to be a protein that is involved with the skeletal muscles associated with breathing. A research team at the University College London (UCL) said that the protein’s structure could be one of the reasons of the unexpected deaths of infants. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome causes 2,400 infant deaths per year in the United States alone. Some other causes of unexpected infant death can be sleeping in the same bed as the parents, inhaling cigarette smoke, or suffocating by lying face down, but most of the cases have no logical explanation of how the death happened.

A case control study undertaken in 20 regions around Europe investigated infant care practices that established an increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) around 1990 (Carpenter et al., 2004). 745 cases of SIDS were investigated in this article, with a control of 2411 infants. Results indicate that prone sleeping and turning from side to the prone position, smoking of the mother and co-sleeping (especially during the first few weeks of life) were significant risk factors for the occurrence of SIDS (Carpenter et al., 2004). Therefore, in conclusion there is a significant correlation between the risk factors and the incidence of SIDS. There were variables that were insignificant towards the risk of SIDS including immunization in the last 7 days, use of a hat usually or upon last occasion and dummy ever used (Carpenter et al., 2004).

As a parent, there are two important guideline we should know when caring for our infant, which is sleep and nutrition. An average infant from newborn to 2 years old needs at least 12 to 18 hours of sleep; an average child from 3 to 5 years old needs at least 11 to 13 hours of sleep; an average teen from 12 to 18 years old needs at least 8.5 to 10 hours of sleep and an average adult age and up need at least 7.5 to 9 hours of sleep. When learning about sleep you will learn about REM sleep and SIDS. During REM sleep, which is when most dreams happen, the brain uses much more energy than during non-REM sleep. Then there is Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) it is an unexplained death of an infant, under one year of age. SIDS is always linked to things that are different from what's usually expected in the baby's brain part that is responsible for controlling arousal from sleep and breathing. Even though all infants are able to be hurt by SIDS, some sleep environment has proven to raise the risk of SIDS. Some of the causes and things that make it more likely that someone will get a disease like SIDS include mother’s maternal age, nicotine exposure, alcohol use during before a baby's birth, lack of breastfeeding, very high or low room temperatures, excess beddings that are likely to result in suffocation, bed sharing and premature birth.

The minimum age of children with CP was 3 years and above (Ellenberg & Nelson, 2012). The result of this literature review showed percentage variations among child with CP who suffered from asphyxia. These variations were due to variability in defining cerebral palsy and asphyxia. The definition of birth CP and asphyxia was questionable due to confusing the proximal effects with causes. Additionally, the researchers considered the clinical picture at birth as non-specific. Lastly, the scientists are defining the outcome of

Chandraharan & Arulkumaran (2007), the World Health Organization (WHO) (2012) and Waldemar et al. (2013) define birth asphyxia

When premature babies are born they do not have fully developed lungs because the lungs are one of the last organs in the body to be produced. The alveoli in the baby’s lungs have not yet started making surfactant, which is typically produced when the baby is 34-36 weeks’ gestation. When the alveoli do not have surfactant, the alveoli want to naturally collapse. Surfactant helps to keep the alveoli open and create more surface area for gas exchange. If you were to look at the infant’s lungs using a microscope, you can see that lungs look as though they are solid from the areas where the alveoli have collapsed, also known as atelectasis. To try to compensate for the atelectasis, “the respiratory bronchioles, alveolar ducts, and some of the alveoli dilate to decrease airway resistance and increase gas exchange” (Jardins 476). As the disease worsens, the walls of the alveoli become lined with a hyaline membrane that is made up of dead cells and proteins that make it nearly impossible for gas exchange to occur. It makes the lungs stiff and much harder to ventilate. With the lungs being noncompliant, the baby starts to become hypoxic. When the infant becomes hypoxic, blood is shunted away from the other organs in the body and venous return and cardiac output are decreased. “Hypoxemia is common in pulmonary hypertension (PH) and may be partly related to ventilation/perfusion mismatch, low diffusion

CHILD DEATH cause by lack of oxygen due to fluid toward the inside the lungs and avoiding the absorption of oxygen leading with cerebral hypoxia and death. Help your child to stay safe, sign on for swing lessons. Teach them to be

There is different methods to diagnose respiratory distress in the neonate. Diagnoses can be based on breath sounds, medical history, physical exams, arterial blood gases, chest x-ray, CT scan, heart sounds, and too much fluid in the body. The arterial blood gas will determine if the infant has enough oxygen in the blood. The chest x-ray will probably show atelectasis, reduce lung volumes, air bronchograms, and increase lung opacification. The patient will experience abnormal breath sounds. The infants will have shallow breathing, sharp pulling in of the chest below and between the ribs, frothing at the lips, blue color around the lips, weak cry, apnea, swelling of the extremities, decrease urine output, flaring of the nostrils, and grunting

Perinatal asphyxia is one of the most serious birth complications and a leading cause of permanent disability and death in full term neonates.

Even though survival of premature infants has improved one in four extremely premature infants, those of the gestational age of twenty-two to twenty-eights weeks, did not survive the birth hospitalization (Patel et al., 2015, p. 332). Doctor Ravi M. Patel M.D., Sarah Kendefer M.D., Michele C. Walch M.D., and other researchers at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Neonatal Research Network set out to find the “Causes and Timing of Death in Extremely Premature Infants from 2000 through 2011”. The study was performed to “…evaluate the causes and timing of death among extremely premature infants…” (Patel et al., 2015, p. 332). The researchers hypothesized that the frequency of pulmonary causes

The sound of the first cry echoes through the room as a newborn takes its first breath of air, is it a boy? Is it a girl? Who cares, as long as the baby is healthy, right? Unfortunately, not every newborn enters this world with a clean bill of health. Babies are born everyday with health issues, some worse than others. The human body is a complex creation; it is comprised of a series of vital organs and systems that are necessary in order to support life, such as the respiratory system, which will be discussed in this paper, in the form of respiratory distress. When a newborn experiences respiratory distress the healthcare provider must be able to quickly identify the signs and symptoms and provide respiratory support. There are many conditions

understanding of these processes. It was believed that neonatal asphyxia was a key cause to damage to the brain in preterm or term babies, but was referred only to the need of oxygen that needed to be administered after birth. Asphyxia is now thought to account for 10-20% of CP cases. CP is routinely prevent in developed countries so they can go unnoticed because it is unusual that family members marry, mothers receive treatment in timely manner, and immunizations are directed at prevention of infant infections. In some developing countries there is a lack of iodine, which causes a specific type of CP. Some maternal infections can result in CP, like rubella. According to Clover, Fairhurst, and Pharaoh (2014) artificial reproductive therapies