Home monitors deemed inadequate for spotting SIDS

Events that home monitors routinely detect as warning signs for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), such as a prolonged cessation of breathing or a slow heart rate, may be common even in healthy infants, according to Yale researchers. “This study calls into question the utility of home monitoring for SIDS,” said George Lister, M.D. ’73, HS ’75, professor of pediatrics and anesthesiology. The findings were published in March in JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association.

A study group made up of physicians at institutions around the country monitored 1,079 infants, some healthy and others considered at high risk for SIDS, for periods ranging from 16 to 66 weeks. Infants who were born prematurely, had a sibling who died of SIDS or had experienced a life-threatening event that required intervention were classified as high risk. “The threshold for an ‘event’ conventionally used for home monitoring picked up so many infants that it would be hard to separate those who are normal and not normal,” said Lister, who chaired the study group. Researchers then used special monitors to record breathing and heart rate patterns around the time of an “event.”

The most extreme events, those that lasted a very long time by usual medical standards, were common only in infants born prematurely, but occurred before the age when SIDS was prevalent. The study group concluded, therefore, that extreme events are not immediate precursors to SIDS. “These early events might be markers of vulnerability to SIDS,” said Lister, “but are unlikely to be events that directly evolve into SIDS.”