In Memory of Baby James
Why did James have to leave?
The Heart Remembers Best...What it has Loved Most...
We will never know exactly how or why James died. Medical experts have theories to what happened the night James died. One theory is that James' fever caused him to have a seizure, the seizure in turn interfered with heart function causing his heart to stop. The Medical Examiner has ruled out metabolic conditions, meningitis, asphyxiation and many other possible causes. At this point we are still questioning what happened to James and will forever wonder what happened that fateful night.
An American organization SUDC (Sudden Unexpected Death in Childhood) is currently running a research project out of San Diego that James has been accepted into. This research project looks at the Sudden and Unexpected deaths in children between the ages of 1 and 11 years. It will be a long process but we hope that it may bring more light to James' death and in turn help find the cause of these tragic deaths. For more information please go to www.sudc.org and click on Research
Letter about James - SIDS Canada will print this letter in their newsletter that comes out at the end of the month.On June 7, 2007 Dr. Krous released these findings from the San Diego study that James is part of. As of the release of this report James’s case has not been looked at, however we hope that we will soon hear if James is part of this subgroup of SUDC children.
Kinney HC, Armstrong DL, Chadwick AE, Crandall LA, Hilbert C, Belliveau RA, Kupsky WJ, Krous HF.
Sudden death in toddlers associated with developmental abnormalities of the hippocampus: a report of five cases.
Arch Dis Child. 2007 Jun 7; [Epub ahead of print]
Sudden unexplained death in childhood (SUDC) is the sudden death of a child older than 1 year of age that remains unexplained after review of the clinical history, circumstances of death, and autopsy with appropriate ancillary testing. We report here 5 cases of SUDC in toddlers that we believe define a new entity associated with hippocampal anomalies at autopsy. All of the toddlers died unexpectedly during the night, apparently during sleep. Within 48 hours before death, 2 toddlers had fever, 3 had a minor upper respiratory tract infection, and 3 experienced minor head trauma. There was a history of febrile seizures in 2 (40%) and a family history of febrile seizures in 2 (40%). Hippocampal findings included external asymmetry and 2 or more microdysgenetic features. The incidence of certain microdysgenetic features was substantially increased in the temporal lobes of these 5 cases compared with the temporal lobes of 39 (control) toddlers with the causes of death established at autopsy (P < 0.01). We propose that these 5 cases define a potential subset of SUDC whose sudden death is caused by an unwitnessed seizure arising during sleep in the anomalous hippocampus and producing cardiopulmonary arrest. Precipitating factors may be fever, infection, and/or minor head trauma. Suggested risk factors are a history of febrile seizures and/or a family history of febrile seizures. Future studies are needed to confirm these initial findings and to define the putative links between sudden death, hippocampal anomalies, and febrile seizures in toddlers.
Full-text available at: www.pedpath.org