Violent Acres: Manners and More SIDS
VA was joking on the earlier post about SIDS. I’m glad I wasn’t alone in not getting the joke. She elaborates today.
SIDS is a load of bunk. Children just don’t ‘magically die’ sometimes when they’re home alone with poor postpartum Mommy.
Oh boy. I have always believed there had to be a better medical explanation in these instances, but I don’t believe it’s infanticide. Well, sometimes it’s infanticide. But not always.
I don’t have cites, but research has shown that babies don’t always have the hang of breathing on their own. This is why babies who sleep with their mothers in safe conditions have a lower rate of SIDS; they naturally regulate their breathing to their mothers’. Studies which show a higher rate of infant deaths while sleeping with their parents tend to ignore factors such as parental intoxication, indoor smoking and unsafe sleep space (e.g. waterbeds, sofas). Also, such studies are generally funded by crib manufacturers.
I’ve got off on a bit of a tangent, and I have read of cases where women who have lost more than one baby to “SIDS” have later been discovered to be child killers. But I don’t buy that all SIDS cases are infanticide.
What the person at Violent Acres doesn’t seem to comprehend is that nobody claims that SIDS is some disease. All SIDS means is that “we don’t know.” It’s a little like saying “headache of unknown origin.” If you *know* why you have a headache, then it isn’t of “unknown origin” any more. Similarly, as we discover more reasons why infants die, they are moved out of SIDS and into other categories. That’s why, for instance, the rate of SIDS has dropped so dramatically in the past few years — indeed fewer kids are dying, thanks to “back to sleep” campaigns for instance, but as important we know why a lot of these kids die now when before we did not.
@All: For the record, this is from William Oliver’s bio off his blog:
“I am a forensic pathologist and computer scientist living in northern Georgia. My MD is from Vanderbilt, my MS in Computer Science is from U North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I did my residency and fellowship at North Carolina, I have a BS in Microbiology from Oklahoma University, and am currently enrolled in a Masters program in Justice Administration.”
@William Oliver: thanks for weighing in with an expert’s opinion.
William O.: You are awesome, and of course you are right. Thank you for clarifying a layperson’s view of the issue.
Exactly – there isn’t going to be one found cure or found cause for SIDS. Yes, some cases are overlaying and suffocation, but from what I’ve read – and the forensic guy would know this to be true or not- that there are certain signs that can be found in an autopsy which point to suffocation. If this is the fact, then the death is not ruled SIDS.
A while back, some botulism cases were ruled SIDS. Then the signs of death by botulism were better established and so that was taken out of the SIDS mix.
Some babies who have long QT intervals are suspected to be at higher risk for SIDS. Tummy sleeping for these kids could be more problematic, but because QT intervals aren’t something readily diagnosed, it’s not always immediately obvious which children would be at higher risk for tummy sleeping.
There might also be other reasons that tummy sleeping isn’t preferable for some infants with hidden developmental delays, but again – which children have these internal delays and which don’t? It’s not always obvious or even testable. So, back sleeping is safest. That some children still die while back sleeping only means that there is one more possible subset of this syndrome. But it’s slowly being chipped away at. No, babies don’t just die in their sleep; there is some reason. We just haven’t uncovered all those reasons.
From Jozet – just a lay person who once worked on a SIDS hotline and not owns a wicked Googler
Excuse me…asphyxiation. To clarify: it’s difficult to tell whether asphyxiation was accidental or deliberate. This piece from SIDS Network talks more about suffocation and SIDS.
http://sids-network.org/experts/suff.htm
On MSP
http://sids-network.org/experts/msp.htm
And from the authors of the book, Death of Innocents
http://sids-network.org/experts/abuse.htm
Dang, I’m going to bed. Suffocation, not asphyxiation. Why can’t I keep those two straight. Sorry for monopolizing your comments.
This is one of the reasons I never pass this site on to my friends. As V has said before, she never fact checks and does only cursory research, preferring to go on in her ignorance because she just entertaining herself. This kind of sensationalistic parent-bashing has been a real theme as of late, and is starting to degenerate into the harmful. I’m all for parents being parents when it comes to raising kids, being firm with discipline and rules. I’m kosher with the training good manners, because it works. But to blanket accuse all grieving parents of murdering their infants is akin to saying everything you read on the Internet is true. Enough with the media-loving gruesome stories. The real ones where parents lose a child through simple tragedies aren’t fascintating enough for the general public, but that doesn’t mean they are secretly hiding a troublesome source. Sometimes babies die for unexplainable reasons, and it’s not the parents. Period.
But, Michelle, if the people you know know not everything on the internet is true, than why should they stop critically thinking when V speaks? I disagree with 1/2 the stuff I read, doesn’t make it less amusing.
And considering the parent V knows, I can see why she’d blame the mother for everything. Also, she admits to being biased as all hell.
Similarly Freud said people project their emotions onto others, and men want to kill their fathers. His own mother married a man that resented her children from a previous marraige.
EVERYONE LIES! SE LA VI! And I don’t trust someone so equinamable that I can’t figure out where the lie is… >:o
I’m sorry dude, I’ve tried to read VA in a way that would possibly make it appealing. I’m open-minded and sarcastic myself, and certainly, in my own stories of my son, try to get people to question what we’re led to believe by the media.
But I do not get the appeal she holds for 8000 readers. It’s one thing to make people think, it’s another thing to attempt to do that by promoting your own brand of ignorance.
That’ll be the the last link of hers I’ll click on. (yeah, I know. not that she cares.)
Queen of Shake Shake’s last blog post..Just Because I Like To Irritate People
@Queen of Shake Shake: No apology to me is necessary. I’m just providing a place for people to vent since she doesn’t allow comments.