Overview

• SIDS deaths have plateaued at about 3,500 annually over the past quarter-century despite safe-sleep education campaigns.
• Rutgers Health researchers propose caffeine as the first pharmaceutical defense by countering intermittent hypoxia common to SIDS risk factors.
• Infants metabolize caffeine up to 25 times more slowly than adults, allowing it to remain in their system for weeks and potentially explain the two-to-four-month SIDS peak.
• Caffeine is already administered to premature infants to treat apnea and shows a strong safety profile with minimal side effects.
• The researchers will compare caffeine levels in babies who died of SIDS with those who died from other causes to test their oxygen-stabilizing hypothesis.