WASHINGTON – Mysterious deaths of more than one newborn in the same family are much more likely to be the result of natural causes than infanticide, as is often suspected, British researchers reported Thursday.
In the most comprehensive attempt to examine the emotionally charged question, the researchers found that when more than one infant dies in the same family, the deaths are only rarely due to foul play.
“We believe that the occurrence of a second or third sudden unexpected death in infancy within a family, although relatively rare, is in most cases from natural causes,” the researchers wrote in a paper being published in the Jan. 1 issue of the Lancet medical journal.
The findings should help prevent families stricken by more than one baby’s death from automatically being placed under a cloud of suspicion, the researchers said.
“If there is a repeat death in a family, the family must be treated with utmost concern and care, and particularly the public shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that they must have killed the child, which is all too common,” said Robert Carpenter, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and leader of the study.
About 2,500 children die each year in the United States from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), also known as crib death. The cause is unknown, though the number of deaths dropped in recent years because of a campaign to put babies to sleep on their backs.
Suspicion was raised in recent years that some deaths that had been blamed on SIDS may have been infanticide, after researchers found that some children who had been killed had their cause of death classified as SIDS.
In the new study, Carpenter and his colleagues conducted a detailed investigation of 57 infants who died in families participating in a support program for parents who had previously experienced a SIDS death in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Nine of the deaths were classified as inevitable, because the babies were born with serious health problems. Of the remaining deaths, the researchers determined that six were infanticides, but only two involved parents who tried to blame the deaths on SIDS. The rest were due to natural causes, including 18 that were SIDS.
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