Study names SIDS risk factors among American Indians

Tuesday, December 3rd 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) _ American Indian mothers who drank alcohol while pregnant increased the risk their babies would die of sudden infant death syndrome, but that risk declined when the mothers were visited by public health nurses before or after giving birth.

A National Institutes of Health study, published in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, evaluated data from infants who died of SIDS within the Indian Health Service region covering North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa.

American Indians in that area had the highest SIDS rate in the health service's 12 regions, at 3.5 deaths for every 1,000 live births from 1996 to 1998.

Researchers found that a mother's alcohol use _ even before she knows she is pregnant _ may increase the risk of her child dying of the syndrome. However, the risk of SIDS fell 80 percent in homes where a public health nurse visited, compared with homes that did not have visits, the study said.

Researchers say the findings suggest that strengthening public health programs and working to reduce alcohol use among women of childbearing age on Indian reservations could cut SIDS deaths.

The researchers did not conclude what it was about the nurses' visits that helped reduce the risk, but those visits typically involve information about SIDS, including advice that putting infants to bed on their backs is the best way to reduce the risk of death from the syndrome, said Dan Dailey, community health director on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, which straddles the North Dakota-South Dakota border.

The Indian Health Service has run SIDS information campaigns for at least 10 years and health workers try to visit each pregnant woman at least once on Standing Rock, Dailey said.

``It's pretty rare for someone to go through a pregnancy without a visit,'' Dailey said.

Overall, the risk of SIDS among American Indians is 1.5 deaths per 1,000 live births, more than double the rate of 0.7 deaths for every 1,000 live births among whites.

Indian babies had six times the risk of dying from SIDS if their mothers drank alcohol in the three months before and the three months after conception, the study said. And Indian babies had eight times the risk of dying from SIDS if their mothers drank more than five drinks at one sitting during the first trimester of pregnancy, researchers said.

The study found ``as soon as (women) found out they were pregnant, the drinking rate went down significantly,'' said Leslie Randall, one of two lead researchers.

Experts do not know what causes SIDS, which kills about 3,000 infants a year, although theories include brain stem defects and heat stress.

The study published Wednesday also found infants dressed in more than a single layer of clothing when they were put to bed were six times more likely to die of SIDS, which suggests overdressing can result in potentially dangerous overheating, Randall said.

While small, the study could lead to a larger review that pinpoints more SIDS risk factors, Randall said.

Reducing risk factors can lower but not eliminate SIDS deaths, she said.

``There's obviously something that we're not catching,'' she said.