↓ Skip to main content

Frontiers

Article Metrics

A “Wear and Tear” Hypothesis to Explain Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Overview of attention for article published in Frontiers in Neurology, October 2016
Altmetric Badge

About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (97th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (97th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
3 news outlets
twitter
68 tweeters
facebook
36 Facebook pages
wikipedia
4 Wikipedia pages
googleplus
2 Google+ users

Citations

dimensions_citation
9 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
78 Mendeley
Title
A “Wear and Tear” Hypothesis to Explain Sudden Infant Death Syndrome
Published in
Frontiers in Neurology, October 2016
DOI 10.3389/fneur.2016.00180
Pubmed ID
Authors

Eran Elhaik

Abstract

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is the leading cause of death among USA infants under 1 year of age accounting for ~2,700 deaths per year. Although formally SIDS dates back at least 2,000 years and was even mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (Kings 3:19), its etiology remains unexplained prompting the CDC to initiate a sudden unexpected infant death case registry in 2010. Due to their total dependence, the ability of the infant to allostatically regulate stressors and stress responses shaped by genetic and environmental factors is severely constrained. We propose that SIDS is the result of cumulative painful, stressful, or traumatic exposures that begin in utero and tax neonatal regulatory systems incompatible with allostasis. We also identify several putative biochemical mechanisms involved in SIDS. We argue that the important characteristics of SIDS, namely male predominance (60:40), the significantly different SIDS rate among USA Hispanics (80% lower) compared to whites, 50% of cases occurring between 7.6 and 17.6 weeks after birth with only 10% after 24.7 weeks, and seasonal variation with most cases occurring during winter, are all associated with common environmental stressors, such as neonatal circumcision and seasonal illnesses. We predict that neonatal circumcision is associated with hypersensitivity to pain and decreased heart rate variability, which increase the risk for SIDS. We also predict that neonatal male circumcision will account for the SIDS gender bias and that groups that practice high male circumcision rates, such as USA whites, will have higher SIDS rates compared to groups with lower circumcision rates. SIDS rates will also be higher in USA states where Medicaid covers circumcision and lower among people that do not practice neonatal circumcision and/or cannot afford to pay for circumcision. We last predict that winter-born premature infants who are circumcised will be at higher risk of SIDS compared to infants who experienced fewer nociceptive exposures. All these predictions are testable experimentally using animal models or cohort studies in humans. Our hypothesis provides new insights into novel risk factors for SIDS that can reduce its risk by modifying current infant care practices to reduce nociceptive exposures.

Twitter Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 68 tweeters who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 78 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 78 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 16 21%
Student > Bachelor 13 17%
Researcher 11 14%
Student > Ph. D. Student 10 13%
Other 4 5%
Other 10 13%
Unknown 14 18%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 25 32%
Psychology 7 9%
Nursing and Health Professions 5 6%
Social Sciences 5 6%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 4 5%
Other 14 18%
Unknown 18 23%

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 90. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 24 February 2023.
All research outputs
#412,120
of 23,342,092 outputs
Outputs from Frontiers in Neurology
#119
of 12,258 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#8,830
of 315,280 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Frontiers in Neurology
#2
of 78 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,342,092 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 98th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 12,258 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.3. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 315,280 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 78 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.