SIDS BREAKTHROUGH MIRACLE FOR PARENTS
NEW research identifying the possible cause of sudden infant death syndrome is giving hope to parents that their newborns can be screened and recognised as high risk.
Brisbane couple Michael and Lauren Larsen went through four years of IVF before their “miracle baby” arrived on May 21, 2020, but just 19 days later little Hope was found unresponsive.
“You don’t even want your worst enemy to go through anything like we did that day and the subsequent weeks and months after it. It’s incredible to know we could eliminate SIDS altogether for future babies,” Ms Larsen said.
Dr Carmel Huntington and her team at The Children’s Hospital Westmead in Sydney have found the enzyme butyrylcholinesterase (BCHE), a key to the brain’s arousal pathway, was low in babies who died from SIDS.
The study is set to be published in The Lancet’s ebiomedicine June Edition.
Dr Huntington, who lost her own son, Damien, to SIDS 29 years ago, is hopeful the research will lead to future screening and prevent further deaths by alerting parents of their high-risk children.
Ms Larsen said the day Hope died was “traumatic”, with police and child protective services in attendance.
“From the moment that it happened it was over 12 months before we had the final cause of death, which was SIDS, which doesn’t give you any real explanation as to what has gone wrong,” she said.
“All (doctors) could tell us was that Hope was a very healthy child, her microbiology all came back perfect there was nothing physically wrong with her.”
The Larsens welcome a second daughter, Faith, on October 11, 2021.