SIDS Breakthrough

[Ivorythumper]

" They found the activity of the enzyme butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) was significantly lower in babies who died of SIDS compared to living infants and other non-SIDS infant deaths. BChE plays a major role in the brain’s arousal pathway, explaining why SIDS typically occurs during sleep. "

I hope this might both console those who've lost children to SIDS (realizing that there was nothing that they did wrong), as well as helping identify babies who might be susceptible.

[Jolly]

It's a Big Deal.

People have some major guilt trips with SIDS babies and they shouldn't. Sometimes, you do everything right, but it still doesn't work.

[Axtremus]

Trying to imagine what a “cure” or a “treatment” might look like …

Will an infant with deficient BChE naturally “grow out of the problem” if they are lucky enough to survive infancy?

Is it genetic? Would an infant diagnosed with deficient BChE need to undergo gene therapy to “fix” the problem?

Will there be a magic pill or magic elixir that can be injected into infants diagnosed with deficient BChE and the infant will be good to go?

Or will BChE deficiency be a “chronic condition” that such an infant will require life-long therapy/treatment to hold the sudden death syndrome at bay for the rest of his life?

Modern medical science keeps getting better at preserving and prolonging lives that “natural causes” wound have taken away in older times …

If there is a cure or treatment for this, should insurance plans (especially the publicly funded ones such as Medicare/Medicaid) be required to cover the cure or treatment?

On the grimmer side of possibilities, if there is no cure/treatment, but this can be detected during pregnancy, should this be an legally acceptable justification to abort the pregnancy, or is society going to force the parent to carry the fetus to term just to watch the baby die at some point in its sleep after birth?

[George K]

Pseudocholinesterase deficiency (aka butyrylcholinestesterase) is something that every anesthesiologist is familiar with. Pseudocholinesterase is involved with the metabolism of succinylcholine, a paralytic drug. Mild deficiencies cause a drug that should last 5-10 minutes to last an hour or so. Severe deficiencies can cause you to be paralyzed for hours and hours.

I've seen a couple, but only one was undiagnosed. Well, I should say it was diagnosed by me, LOL.

It's an autosomal dominant trait, and it's no big deal, if you know about it beforehand.

There is no treatment, afaik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudocholinesterase_deficiency