1 Cardiothoracic Institute, Brompton Hospital, Fulham Road, London, SW3 6HP, England
2 Thames Polytechnic, London
To the Editor.
By attempting to examine the hypothesis that abnormalities in the pattern of apneic pauses in the neonatal period could predict all, or most cases of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), Steinschneider et al1 may have missed a valuable opportunity to determine a small proportion of cases with more definite abnormalities. Moreover, some measurements made in this study could reflect differences in variables other than apnea. For example, the measurement "A.O/D%", that is the duration of apnea/obstruction events divided by the duration of all sucking bursts x 100, is critically dependent on the duration of sucking.