Groundbreaking research into Sudden Infant Death Syndrome has been released

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, also known as cot death, has had a devastating effect on families for decades, but it appears that an anaesthesiologist at Seattle Children’s Hospital may have finally identified the cause of the heartbreaking medical mystery.

Dr. Daniel Rubens has spent 11 years researching the condition which has left medical professionals stumped since it was finally given a name at a medical conference almost 40 years ago.

According to the anaesthesiologist, an infant who falls victim to the syndrome may be suffering from inner-ear damage which affects the breathing system while asleep and eventually leads to suffocation.

Elaborating on his hypothesis, Dr. Rubens said: “These babies have inner-ear damage, but they can’t tell you. They are too young to sit up. The baby has got a problem getting air.”

Convinced he has uncovered the overriding factor in the tragic death of these infants, he goes on to say: “The more I look at this, I see it’s correct and we need to see this through.”

Having raised approximately $20,000 in order to research the syndrome, Dr. Rubens is adamant that further research must be done in order to establish a hearing test which will screen newborn babies for hearing dysfunction without 48 hours of their birth.

A study conducted by The Rhode Island Department of Health, who used a test group of 31 infants who died from SIDS, established that each infant scored lower across a variety of sound frequencies in their right ears, while postmortems carried out on victims of SIDS ascertained that all experienced bleeding and damage to their inner ear.

 While normally not the realm of an anaesthesiologist, Dr. Rubens explained the motivation behind his research into the syndrome, saying: “It’s so helpless for the parents and I can’t walk away from it.”

Adamant that he is on the right track, Dr. Rubens, who founded the SIDS Research Guild last year, said: "I am not going to give up. We will find a way."