Doctors initially concluded the first boy had died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) — in which a seemingly healthy baby dies without warning and without an obvious cause. But after Clark's second child died, prosecutors in the United Kingdom charged her with murder and put her on trial. The research involved 278 infants who died of SIDS, also called “crib death” or “cot death,” and 729 healthy controls. “Our study is the first to link a genetic cause of weaker breathing muscles with sudden infant death syndrome and suggests that genes controlling breathing muscle function could be important in this condition. In total in 2015, the most recent year for which figures are available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1,600 babies had died of SIDS.

Source: Washington Post March 28, 2018 22:38 UTC