Debate on cot death

Infanticide, filicide, and cot death.

The 'suppression' of unwanted babies seems to have been commonplace in antiquity. Early travellers to New Zealand, while remarking on how fond the Maoris were of their children and how well they looked after them, noted that infanticide was openly practised. The most favoured methods were squeezing the nose between the fingers, pressing the fontanel, or putting a wet cloth over the baby's head-...

Infanticide, filicide, and cot death

The 'suppression' of unwanted babies seems to have been commonplace in antiquity. Early travellers to New Zealand, while remarking on how fond the Maoris were of their children and how well they looked after them, noted that infanticide was openly practised. The most favoured methods were squeezing the nose between the fingers, pressing the fontanel, or putting a wet cloth over the baby's head-...

Respiratory viruses and cot death.

Respiratory viruses and histological appearances of the lung were studied prospectively in an unselected series of 104 children who died between 1 week and 2 years of age. Thirty-one of the cases were cot deaths. Seven of these showed evidence of active virus infection in the lower respiratory tract. Similar evidence was found in two children who died from known causes and did not have a severe...

Effects of nicotine on bacterial toxins associated with cot death.

Toxins produced by staphylococci and enterobacteria isolated from the nasopharynx of cases of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) have a lethal effect when injected into chick embryos. If the toxins are progressively diluted the lethal effect disappears, but certain combinations of toxins show synergy so that if sublethal doses are mixed a highly lethal effect is produced. In this paper it is s...

Cot mattresses and sudden infant death syndrome.