PEDIATRICS Vol. 81 No. 5 May 1988, pp. 747
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when eLetters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow E-mail this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My File Cabinet
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via CrossRef
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by DIMAIO, V. J. M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by DIMAIO, V. J. M.

SIDS or Murder?

VINCENT J. M. DIMAIO MD1

1 County of Bexar, Office of the Medical Examiner, Regional Crime Lab Building, 600 N Leona St, San Antonio, TX 78207

To the Editor.—

It was with resignation that I read the paper by Oren et al1 about SIDS and familial occurrence. It is my opinion, as well as that of a number of other forensic pathologists to whom I showed the article, that the five deaths in group I of this article (infants born to families with two or more siblings who died of SIDS) are in all medical probability homicides by smothering. The individual clinical findings of these cases is not given, but from experience, I would say that one or more of these children in each family were brought to physicians and emergency rooms a number of times with a history of apneic episodes, that, if admitted, they never experienced these episodes in the hospital (unless they were alone with a parent), and that they were subsequently brought in dead after suffering a fatal apneic episode.