SIDS or Cot Death

There is a general perception that the cause of cot death remains unknown.
This is not so. The cause of cot death (often erroneously termed Sudden
Infant Death Syndrome or SIDS) has been elucidated as being due to extremely
toxic “nerve” gases generated by fungal activity on chemicals frequently
present in cot mattresses and in certain other bedding commonly used in baby
bedding.
However this explanation, often referred to in Britain as “The
Richardson Hypothesis”, has aroused considerable controversy, especially
among persons and organisations closely associated with cot death.
Interventions based on this explanation have been widely advocated in two
countries; first in Britain (1989 and 1994) and far more intensively in New
Zealand through an intensive public information programme from late 1994
continouously to the present.
Both interventions were followed by significant reductions in cot death, especially the 10-year “mattress-wrapping” programme in New Zealand. Mattress-wrapping (a logical intervention based on the toxic gas explanation) is an obvious corollary to that explanation. If this intervention method is successful in preventing cot death, that outcome provides very strong proof of the validity of the explanation. And this has been the outcome—during the 10-year
intervention period in NZ there has never been a report of a cot death when
the baby has been sleeping on a mattress wrapped in accordance with the
simple protocol based on the explanation, and the NZ cot death rate has
fallen markedly. Given the close examination of all cot deaths in New
Zealand (about 650 from 1995 to the present) nil reported deaths on wrapped
mattresses effectively means that there have been no such deaths.
The apparently total success of the intervention, and the reduction in cot
deaths, provide a standard of proof of the toxic gas explanation which
nullifies the opposition of those who would deny it. The success of
mattress-wrapping for the prevention of cot death is such that it behoves
all people and organisations who provide advice to parents about cot death
prevention to inform parents of the NZ experience using this technique.

In this text the term <cot> is synonymous with <crib>. The term Sudden
Infant Death Syndrome, and its acronym SIDS to describe cot death, have
become widely used; however the term is a misnomer. The term syndrome is
defined in The New Oxford Dictionary as: “Concurrence of several symptoms in a disease; set of concurrent symptoms characterising it.
But there are no observable or described symptoms of cot death – the only
commonality is death itself. Therefore the term SIDS is incorrect and should
be abandoned. It is highly misleading, and has added greatly to the
confusion which surrounds this topic, because it perpetuates the incorrect
assumption that cot death has a medical cause.