Source: The Examiner (Ireland) Contact: 7 Sep 1998 Author: Mark Gallagher 90% OF COT DEATH BABIES HAVE NICOTINE IN THEIR BLOODSTREAM A SCANDINAVIAN study has found 90% of all cot death babies have "significant" level of nicotine in their bloodstream. The research, conducted by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, also found a quarter of all victims had as much nicotine in their bodies as regular smokers. The institute published the findings in the US Journal of Paediatrics. They offer the first direct link between tobacco and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, long thought to be connected. This was the first study of its kind to measure the nicotine levels in the bodies of infants who had died suddenly. It also offered the first scientific evidence parental smoking is linked directly to the cot death of children. The researchers, led by Dr Joseph Milerad, neonatologist at the Department of Women and Child Health at the institute, looked at samples of pericardial fluid, the fluid which is deposited around the heart, from every child under seven who had died suddenly in the greater Oslo region between 1990 and 1993. Dr Milerad and his team took samples from 45 babies, 24 of whom had suffered SIDS. The others had died from either infection or accident. Unfortunately, they were unable to compare pericardial fluid of those SIDS victims and healthy babies, as it is not possible to take the fluid from a living baby. The fluid was tested for cotinine, a nicotine component which is produced as the body metabolises nicotine. The result of the test gives a fairly healthy indication of the level of tobacco exposure from between four to eight hours before death. The evidence was strong enough for Dr Milerad to conclude nicotine did pose a direct risk to the health of infants. In the past, parents were told not to smoke around infants to prevent the development of asthma and other bronchial complaints. Dr Milerad now believes secondary smoking by infants poses a much greater danger, saying past studies of rats and unborn babies indicated exposure to nicotine depresses the body's response to a fall in oxygen and delays arousal from sleep. "If you ask mothers whether they smoke near their babies, you get the answer not so much, but we have shown how strong the link is between smoking and cot death," Dr Milerard said. A report released by the Irish Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Association (ISIDA) earlier this year did say smoking posed a risk factor to infants with regard to cot deaths, with 80% of Irish parents of cot death victims smoking. "The Irish data certainly mirrors the Swedish study," said Prof Tom Matthews of ISIDA. - --- Checked-by: Pat Dolan