Newborn Hearing Screening and the risk of SIDS
Research type
Research Study
Full title
An investigation of the relationship between the result of the routine newborn hearing screening test and the risk of unexpected infant death
IRAS ID
157211
Contact name
B Whitman
Contact email
Research summary
Despite the dramatic reduction in numbers of infants dying as sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) after the “back to sleep” campaign, SIDS remains the largest single group of infant deaths after the first week of life. A small study conducted in the USA in 2007 showed differences in the signals recorded in the routine newborn hearing test of babies who subsequently died as SIDS compared to babies who did not die, raising the possibility that this could be used to identify and offer targeted interventions to infants at high risk.
Since 2007, over 99% of infants in the UK have undergone electronic newborn hearing testing. Data from these hearing tests are kept and stored at the National Hearing Screening Centre in London, and are thus potentially available for investigation for most infants who have died as SIDS since 2008.
In 2008 a new multi-agency approach to the investigations of all unexpected infant deaths in England was introduced making it easier to collect accurate information about these deaths.
We propose collecting information from 120 families whose babies have died suddenly and unexpectedly in England since 2008, whose deaths meet the criteria to be classified as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and to identify and extract the hearing test recordings from these babies. Provided the quality of the stored recordings is adequate we will compare the signals from infants who died with those from a large population of (anonymous) surviving infants to identify any differences. We will quantify any differences from the normal populations that are seen in the recordings from infants who have died, and evaluate the potential for developing a prospective scoring system to identify and offer targeted intervention to families of infants identified as being in group at high risk of dying.REC name
South West - Central Bristol Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/SW/1084
Date of REC Opinion
6 Oct 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion