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Signs and symptoms of illness in early infancy: associations with sudden infant death

¹ Department of Child Health, University of Leicester, UK
² Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Leicester, UK
³ Academic Unit of Child Health, University of Sheffield, UK
⁴ Sheffield Children’s Hospital, UK

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr M Wailoo
Department of Child Health, Clinical Sciences Building, Leicester Royal Infirmary, Leicester LE2 7LX, UK; mw33{at}le.ac.uk

Aims: to describe a pattern of illness in "normal" infants, and to assess to what extent this may differ in infants who die suddenly and unexpectedly.

Methods: All infants are on the CONI (Care of the Next Infant) scheme in which mothers record symptoms and signs of illness prospectively, on a daily basis from birth to approximately age 6 months. The symptoms of infants who die suddenly and unexpectedly are compared with those of a consecutive sample of infants who survive. Twenty one babies died suddenly, of whom 11 were cot deaths and 10 had "known causes" of death. Ninety eight infants who survived were used as consecutive controls. Prospective daily records of the presence or absence of 26 signs and symptoms were kept by all of the mothers, commencing at birth and lasting an average of 176 days in survivors; 84 days in SIDS; and 93 days in infants who died of known causes.

Results: Standardised for age and the time of year, on any given day, the mothers of the SIDS infants were over eight times more likely to record their child as being pale, six times more likely to be sweating, and twice as likely to be irritable. Other signs and symptoms which were three times more likely to be recorded were sore gums, dry stools, and coldness. Infants who died of known causes generally had fewer symptoms.

Conclusions: Cot death infants have a range of symptoms which appear to be of a general nature, and not related to any one system. Symptoms are seen throughout life and not related to the time of death.

Keywords: morbidity; CONI; sudden infant death syndrome

Abbreviations: CONI, Care of the Next Infant scheme; SIDS, sudden infant death syndrome; SMR, standardised morbidity ratio