Crib videos offer clue to mysterious child deaths
The last bedtime of 17-monthold Hayden Fell’s life was heartbreakingly normal. Crib video shows the toddler in pajamas playing happily as his parents and sister sang “Wheels on the Bus” with his twin brother.
The next morning, Hayden’s dad couldn’t wake him. The tot had become one of several hundred seemingly healthy US toddlers and preschoolers each year who die in their sleep and autopsies can’t tell why. But Hayden’s crib cam was recording all night — and offered a clue.
Seizures during sleep are a potential cause of at least some cases of sudden unexplained death in childhood, or SUDC, researchers at NYU Langone Health reported Thursday after analyzing home monitoring video that captured the deaths of seven sleeping toddlers.
Similar to SIDS in babies, SUDC is the term when these mysterious deaths occur any time after a child’s first birthday. Little is known about SUDC but some scientists have long suspected seizures may play a role. In addition to some genetics research, scientists also have found that a history of fever-related seizures was about 10 times more likely among the children who died suddenly than among youngsters the same age.
The new study is very small but offers the first direct evidence of a seizure link. Five of the toddlers died shortly after movements deemed to be a brief seizure by a team of forensic pathologists, a seizure specialist and a sleep specialist. A sixth child probably also had one, according to findings published online by the journal Neurology.
“It’s hard to watch,” said Dr. Orrin Devinsky, an NYU neurologist and the study’s senior author. “We have video which is in some ways the best evidence we may ever get of what’s happened to these kids.”