Research done has revealed shocking news news about the cause of sudden infant death syndrome in younger children,this study has been hailed as a significant advance by the Britsih scientist who took part in this research.
The is the first to discover a biochemical marker in the blood that is linked to to the risk of Sids ,here many reported cases of a healthy babies died during their sleep ,the cause of their deaths remained a point of discussions.
Although the test is not accurate enough to be used in newborns screening ,it hints that abnormal low levels of chemical linked to brain arousal system could be involved in causing babies to die suddenly in their sleep.
The investigation was done by Dr Carmel Harrington ,a researcher at the children's hospital westmead .New South Wales ,Who even lost his son due to Sudden infant death syndrome,29 years ago.
Dr Hallington and his Team used dried blood sampled withdrawn from babies during prick test from 655 healthy babies ,26 of them died with Sids and 41 babies died from infancy due to other causes.
They found that 26 babies who died from Sids had low level of ButylCholinesterase Enzyme( BChE),which plays a major role in the brain arousal pathway .
This Could indicate arousal deficit which reduce an infant capacity to wake or respond to the external environment ,suh as overheating ,or blanket cover face and these leads to vulnerability to Sids.
The researchers say,at this stage testing for BChE wouldn't be helpful as a newborn screening tool ,Although the Sids babies had lower levels on average ,there was also a lot of overlap between the groups with about half of the Sids babies falling within the same range as half of babies who did not die.
Also the Biomarkers found are not powerful predictor as some previously known environmental factors such as smoking during pregnancy ,which is linked to a more than threshold increase in a Sids incidence
ButylCholinesterase is an enzyme of cholinergic system ,a major branch of the autonomic sysytem and may provide a measure of of autonomic function