1 College of Physicians & Surgeons, Columbia University
The article by Steinschneider and Santos in this issue of Pediatrics,1 is one in a series2-6 in which a relatively new technique of on-line recordings of cardiorespiratory function is used. This technique has been used mainly during home monitoring of infants considered to be at high risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). It allows for objective on-line recording of cardiorespiratory anomalies and their correlation with parental observation. The authors have monitored 155 siblings of infants who died of SIDS, whom they considered to be epidemiologically at risk. Many alarms were reported for both apnea and bradycardia. Many parents felt a need to stimulate the infants or to provide cardiopulmonary resuscitation, either because of monitor alarms or because they perceived clinical changes in respiratory pattern, color, or behavior, which they believed to be of a life-threatening nature.
Submitted on March 11, 1991