Citation

Hutter CD, Blair ME. Med. Hypotheses 1996; 46(1): 1-4.

Affiliation

City Hospital NHS Trust, Nottingham, UK.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1996, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

8746119

Abstract

The epidemiological features of sudden infant death syndrome (cot death) include a peak incidence between 8 and 13 weeks of age, a time of death or conception occurring during the winter months and an excess of deaths in infants born to young multiparous women of low socioeconomic status who smoke. We suggest that, through hypoxia, carbon monoxide in tobacco smoke and in the home exerts a noxious effect on the developing central respiratory control mechanism of the fetal brain which then remains particularly susceptible to further insults in the early postnatal period from infection and hyperthermia, resulting in death from central respiratory dysfunction.

Language: en