Pediatrics
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Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) victims were regarded as normal as a matter of definition (Beckwith 1970) until 1952 when Kinney and colleagues argued for elimination of the clause, "unexpected by history." They argued that "not all SIDS victims were normal," and referred to their hypothesis that SIDS results from brain abnormalities, which they postulated "to originate in utero and lead to sudden death during a vulnerable postnatal period." Bergman (1970) argued that SIDS did not depend on any "single characteristic that ordains a infant for death," but on an interaction of risk factors with variable probabilities. Wedgwood (1972) agreed and grouped risk factors into the first "triple risk hypothesis" consisting of general vulnerability, age-specific risks, and precipitating factors. Raring (1975), based on a bell-shaped curve of age of death (log-transformed), concluded that SIDS was a random process with multifactorial causation. ⋯ This is in contrast to the delay until the postneonatal period of most SIDS deaths. A categorical statement that the origin of SIDS is prenatal is unwarranted by the evidence. Brainstem abnormalities have not been shown to cause SIDS, but are more likely a nonspecific effect of hypoxia.