NCJ Number
129333
Journal
Child Abuse and Neglect Volume: 15 Issue: 3 Dated: (1991) Pages: 275-278
Date Published
1991
Length
4 pages
Annotation
Because some Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) deaths have been attributed to child abuse by suffocation, the association between SIDS and other types of child abuse and neglect was examined.
Abstract
A study was made of all children born within the Southern Derbyshire (UK) Health Authority between January 1, 1984 and June 30, 1988 whose names had been entered in the Child Protection Register as victims of child abuse or at high risk for abuse. From a cohort of 288 children in the register, 1 in 30 had a sibling whose death was attributed to SIDS. In this area, there appeared to be an association between child abuse and nearly 10 percent of the recorded SIDS fatalities. The authors suggest that future research should focus on the relationship between the risk of SIDS and the categories of concern for which children were entered into the Child Protection Register. When SIDS deaths are broken down into different etiological groupings, filicide needs to be considered as a category. 1 table and 11 references (Author abstract modified)