Routine metabolic screening could help identify babies at higher risk of SIDS

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2024-09-10 01:00

International

Photo by Christian Bowen on Unsplash

Test results from routine metabolic screening for newborns could help identify babies at a higher risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), according to international researchers. The team looked at the results of newborn bloodspot screening - usually done to check for conditions including cystic fibrosis and congenital hypothyroidism - for over 2 million infants in the US. 354 of these infants died of SIDS, and the researchers looked for patterns in the levels of different metabolites in their bloodspot test. They say they found 14 metabolites that were associated with SIDS, which could mean testing we're already doing on many newborns may be able to help predict babies at a higher risk. Further research may also be able to look into these specific metabolites and see if they can tell us more about how SIDS occurs and how it can be prevented.

Media release

From: JAMA

About The Study: Results from this case-control study showed an association between aberrant metabolic analytes at birth and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). These findings suggest that we may be able to identify infants at increased risk for SIDS soon after birth, which could inform further mechanistic research and clinical efforts focused on monitoring and prevention.

Attachments

Note: Not all attachments are visible to the general public. Research URLs will go live after the embargo ends.

Research JAMA, Web page The URL will go live after the embargo ends

Journal/
conference: JAMA Pediatrics

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of California San Francisco, USA

Funder: This work was supported in part by the California Preterm Birth Initiative within the University of California, San Francisco and by National Institutes of Health grant HD101540.

Media Contact/s

Contact details are only visible to registered journalists.