This volume covers aspects of sudden infant and early childhood death, ranging from issues with parental grief, to the most recent theories of brainstem neurotransmitters. It also deals with the changes that have occurred over time with the definitions of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome), SUDI (sudden unexpected death in infancy) and SUDIC (sudden unexpected death in childhood). The text will be indispensable for SIDS researchers, SIDS organisations, paediatric pathologists, forensic pathologists, paediatricians and families, in addition to residents in training programs that involve paediatrics. It will also be of use to other physicians, lawyers and law enforcement officials who deal with these cases, and should be a useful addition to all medical examiner/forensic, paediatric and pathology departments, hospital and university libraries on a global scale. Given the marked changes that have occurred in the epidemiology and understanding of SIDS and sudden death in the very young over the past decade, a text such as this is very timely and is also urgently needed.

Ten Babies. Eight Murders. One Woman to Blame: Their Mother In March of 1949, a healthy baby boy named Richard Noe entered this world. Thirty-one days later, he left it -- found dead in his parents' bedroom in a working-class Philadelphia neighborhood. Over the next nineteen years, all nine of Marie and Arthur Noe's other children would die -- one stillborn, one in the hospital, and the other seven of unexplained causes--none lived longer than fifteen months. Gaining national sympathy for their unbelievabloe bad luck, the Noes were deemed victims of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). But as the years went on, may people found their SIDS defence a hard pill to swallow -- after all, SIDS is not a hereditary condition. As investigators proved, they found that in each case, the child had died while home alone with Marie Noe. Finally, in 1999 -- fifty years after her first child died -- septuagenarian Maried Noe pled guilty to killing eight of her ten dead children. Today, she remains at home on probation helping psychiatric experts understand what is perhaps one of the most disturbing and baffling mysteries of all: how and why a mother could kill her own children. In this riveting true crime account, author John Glatt goes behind the headlines and into the heart of this fascinating case to reveal the shocking answers.

A scientifically rigorous, multidisciplinary approach to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, for practitioners, researchers and families alike.

Accompanying CD-ROM contains: contents of book; continuous updates; slide image library; references linked to MEDLINE; pediatric guidelines; case studies; review questions.

Reassurance for parents who struggle with anger, guilt, and despair after a miscarriage, stillbirth, infant death.

Unraveling a twenty-five-year tale of multiple murder and medical deception, The Death of Innocents is a work of first-rate journalism told with the compelling narrative drive of a mystery novel. More than just a true-crime story, it is the stunning expose of spurious science that sent medical researchers in the wrong direction--and nearly allowed a murderer to go unpunished. On July 28, 1971, a two-and-a-half-month-old baby named Noah Hoyt died in his trailer home in a rural hamlet of upstate New York. He was the fifth child of Waneta and Tim Hoyt to die suddenly in the space of seven years. People certainly talked, but Waneta spoke vaguely of "crib death," and over time the talk faded. Nearly two decades later a district attorney in Syracuse, New York, was alerted to a landmark paper in the literature on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome--SIDS--that had been published in a prestigious medical journal back in 1972. Written by a prominent researcher at a Syracuse medical center, the article described a family in which five children had died suddenly without explanation. The D.A. was convinced that something about this account was very wrong. An intensive quest by a team of investigators came to a climax in the spring of 1995, in a dramatic multiple-murder trial that made headlines nationwide. But this book is not only a vivid account of infanticide revealed; it is also a riveting medical detective story. That journal article had legitimized the deaths of the last two babies by theorizing a cause for the mystery of SIDS, suggesting it could be predicted and prevented, and fostering the presumption that SIDS runs in families. More than two decades of multimillion-dollar studies have failed to confirm any of these widely accepted premises. How all this happened--could have happened--is a compelling story of high-stakes medical research in action. And the enigma of familial SIDS has given rise to a special and terrible irony. There is today a maxim in forensic pathology: One unexplained infant death in a family is SIDS. Two is very suspicious. Three is homicide.

Cot death remains a mystery to medical science. Jim Sprott, who was awarded the OBE for services to forensic science and the community, believes he knows the cause. In this book, Sprott explains his theories and gives advice to prevent cot death