Ambulatory and in-hospital continuous recording of sleep state and cardiorespiratory parameters in 'near miss' for the sudden infant death syndrome and control infants.

Electrophysiologic and cardiorespiratory events were studied polygraphically and by ambulatory monitoring in 'near miss' for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and normal control infants 1-4 months old. The data show that 'near miss' babies typically have many apneic periods in their sleep, particularly apneas lasting 10 sec or longer. These tend to decrease with age. They have longer lasting apneas than controls, although the latter have respiratory pauses lasting less than 10 sec, in particular during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. An upper respiratory infection (URI) in 'near miss' infants clearly appears to be a risk factor which will be studied further both in-hospital and at home using a monitoring technique with our Medilog ambulatory system.