zlacker

I’ve heard credible rumors that SIDS is the “parent accidentally killed their child but we won’t tell them that” polite fiction.

>>bombca+(OP)
Who have you heard these rumors from?

How did you determine them to be credible?

My assumption is that any citation to a rumor should be totally dismissed if these questions can’t be answered.

>>bombca+(OP)
This article is entirely about debunking rumors and looking at actual scientific evidence to correct people's misconceptions -- misconceptions among doctors and law enforcement that have ruined people's lives.

So please don't bring "rumors" into a discussion here. That's exactly the kind of harmful behavior the article is trying to fight against.

>>ncalla+F2
It seems to me that this rumor is just an alternate framing of the original commenter's assertion that "a minor bump in the head for a baby could be life threatening, but we just mark it as SIDS". I think it's fair to be skeptical of both, but it's worth reflecting on how the same factual assertions can come across as either "science-informed speculation" or "crazy unsubstantiated rumor" depending on how you say them.

>>bombca+(OP)
Don’t say horrible things like that unless you can really back them up. Think of how a grief stricken parent might feel after reading that.

>>bombca+(OP)
That's the whole point here, isn't it: that 'what you've heard' isn't credible at all. There is no 'polite fiction' here, what there is is people looking for culprits when there are none. Does that meant that all such cases are accidents? No, because we know for a fact that some people really do hurt infants for whatever reason. But the evidence is apparently such that a large fraction of the cases that were thought to be criminal in actuality were not. So don't go on rumors or polite fictions when lives are at stake. Do the legwork before ruining people's lives.

>>SpicyL+t3
Exactly. And imagine you’re a doctor, and you have a dead child in front of you, crying parents, and a form to fill out. No possible way of filling out the form brings the child back to life, and one way makes it as easy as possible for everyone, and another results in potentially up to jail time.

Now do this repeatedly during your long and illustrious career.

>>SpicyL+t3
> or "crazy unsubstantiated rumor" depending on how you say them.

“How it was said” was literally presented as unsubstantiated rumor. It’s not worth reflecting that when someone says “I heard a rumor that X…” it sounds like an unsubstantiated rumor. It’s just the basic structure of English language.

>>slashd+w3
SIDS most likely does not exist. "Unknown cause of death" should be preferred.[1] If you review the literature, there has been a definite increase in pushback against "SIDS" instead trying to assign causes of death with known mechanisms. I can't find a great reference but there is one out there that proposes with evidence that the most prevalent actual cause of death labeled "SIDS" is accidental suffocation.

It is so emotionally charged though that there is and has been great hesitation to assign this cause of death because of the emotional effect on the parents.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10571752/

>>colech+3b
One of my children had a serious problem right after birth with breathing (central apnea). He'd stop breathing suddenly while sleeping. If this had happened at home he likely would not have made it, but the hospital was very alert to it and after two weeks with many such episodes it suddenly clicked and then it never happened again.

If we had taken him home without knowing about the condition I'm pretty sure a 'SIDS' cause of death would have been one of the possible outcomes regardless of the actual cause (which would have been very hard to determine after the fact).

>>bombca+q5
My wife is a pediatric ER doctor. That’s not how that works. If suspected SIDS case/unexplained death comes in, it would be handed over to the child abuse team and the medical examiner would determine cause of death. The medical examiner is detached from crying parents.

What you’re talking about would require a lot more than just one well meaning doctor.

>>jacque+Pi
Thank god the hospital caught it!

>>slashd+w53
They were really caught out by it themselves if not for an unrelated issue they would have sent us home. So luck played a huge part here. That's also two weeks that aged me a couple of years. But compared to what I saw some of the other parents there deal with we were the lucky ones in more ways than one.