CDC Creates New Database to Track SIDS Babies

Modern medicine has done a lot to reduce the number of babies that die due to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SYIDS), in fact, according to LiveScience, the CDC says that research and educational programs have reduced such deaths by some fifty percent. But, that's still not enough of course, as just one baby dying unexpectedly is too many. This is why the CDC has decided to create a new database to track all infant deaths to see if there are any trends that might emerge that reveal something that is currently being overlooked. Called the Sudden Unexplained Infant Death database, it's mission is to track as many infant deaths, regardless of cause, as is humanly possible.

What's not so obvious in the reasons stated for the database program is the very real possibility that many infant deaths are actually not so much a mystery, as a cover-up. Infants are truly fragile beings, and many die every year from accidents and/or abuse. By instigating the creation of a nationwide database to track all infant births, the agency is also hoping to discern if a very high percentage of them are not due to SIDS at all.

At any rate, the way the program works is, all medical institutions in the country will be required to fill out a form whenever an infant dies. It's called the Sudden Unexplained Infant Death Investigation Reporting Form (SUIDIRF) and can be downloaded at the same CDC sight. It's extensive and requires answers from both medical professionals and caretakers (general parents, babysitters or daycare providers). Questions cover the environment in which the baby was living, including temperature, bedding arrangements, how long the baby was alone before its condition was discovered, etc. Autopsy reports are also requested. Again, the purpose of the questions is to see if any similarities in situations can be discovered and then associated with the death.

In the past, such connections were made through anecdotal evidence which over time resulted in the publishing of new rules to help parents prevent crib death, which of course has gone a long way towards preventing the more obvious reasons for crib death, especially in cases that involved possible suffocation due to bedding materials either in a crib on worse in the grown up bed where and infant was allowed to sleep.

The database will be computerized of course, which means that not only can data be put in, but reports returned automatically. And not only that, computer programs that perform statistical analysis can be applied to help spot trends that aren't readily apparent to researches pouring over data.

A pilot program of the registry for the database has already been set up and is in use in several states. Once all the kinds are worked out, the system will go national, and hopefully trend-spotting will commence shortly thereafter.