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Effect on Sleep Position on Apnea and Bradycardia in High-Risk Infants

Journal of Perinatology volume 22, pages 163–164 (2002)Cite this article

Hershberger and associates1 recently published a careful study in the Journal of Perinatology of apnea and bradycardia during monitoring of infants considered at risk for SIDS in the prone and side-lying positions during sleep. They hypothesized that there would be increased cardiorespiratory events in the infants when prone. Their results did not bear this out as they found no differences. The expectation of differences was apparently based on the belief that apnea and SIDS are related. There have never been any convincing data linking apnea to SIDS.

The sleep apnea theory was proposed by Steinschneider2 in 1972 based on studies of five infants, two of whom died, with no controls. The cause of the deaths was later proven to be infanticide.3 This theory was rapidly embraced by both the medical and the lay public presumably because it offered the possibility of intervention by monitoring. In spite of widespread monitoring of infants in the United States during almost 30 years, monitoring has not decreased the rate of SIDS.4 Cardiorespiratory abnormalities in the pneumogram were reported to identify infants at risk for SIDS and consequently recommended for infants who should benefit from monitoring. These recommendations were never published in a peer-reviewed journal but rather by the SIDS Foundation, a predominantly lay organization of parents of SIDS infants. The abnormalities described are common in normal infants and the use of pneumograms for this purpose is no longer recommended.5

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  1. Keck School of Medicine, USC Medical Center, University of Southern California, Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Joan E Hodgman MD

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  1. Joan E Hodgman MD
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Hodgman, J. Effect on Sleep Position on Apnea and Bradycardia in High-Risk Infants. J Perinatol 22, 163–164 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.jp.7210658

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