Siblings of babies who died of SIDS could have a higher SIDS risk as well

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2023-01-26 03:00

International

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Siblings of a child who has died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) could have a higher risk of also dying of SIDS than the general population, according to a Danish study. The researchers used Danish nationwide register data dating back to 1978 to compare the risk for those with or without a sibling who'd died from SIDS. 1549 of over 2.5 million infants included in the study died from SIDS, and the researchers say having a sibling who died of SIDS was associated with a 4-fold higher risk of also dying of SIDS. The researchers say SIDS is still very rare and declining, but this shows genes and/or environmental factors shared by siblings could influence the risk and should be considered.

Media release

From: JAMA

About The Study: In this study of more than 2.6 million births in Denmark between 1978 and 2016, a higher rate of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) was observed among siblings of children who died of SIDS compared with the general population. Shared genetic and/or environmental factors may contribute to the observed clustering of SIDS. The family history of SIDS should be considered when assessing SIDS risk in clinical settings.

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

Journal/
conference: JAMA Network Open

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Copenhagen University Hospital, Denmark

Funder: This study was supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the H2020 Programme of the EU ESCAPE-NET project, and the University Hospital of Copenhagen (Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark). Ms Lodder was supported by the Netherlands CardioVascular Research Initiative (grant CVON2017-15 RESCUED) and the Dutch Research Council (NWO Talent Scheme VIDI-91718361). Prof Behr was supported by the Robert Lancaster Memorial Fund.

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