JAMA Pediatrics: Maternal obesity may cause sudden unexpected infant death, study finds

Researchers have discovered that maternal obesity is associated with the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). The results of their respective study were published in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics.

Risk factors for SIDS include sleeping on the stomach, short periods of breastfeeding, and the mother's smoking habit. Researchers have noted that the number of mothers who smoke has decreased in recent years, instead the cases of mothers suffering from obesity have increased.

As part of the new scientific work, researchers have focused on finding a link between the abovementioned condition and SIDS.

Researchers at the at the Clinical Artificial Intelligence Research Lab analyzed a comprehensive set of medical data from nearly 18 million infants born in the United States between 2015 and 2019. A total of 16,545 of these infants had died suddenly.

The analysis showed that if the mother is underweight, the SIDS risk is small, while a high body mass index is directly related to the probability of the baby dying in the first year of life. In the case of obesity of the first degree, the probability of SIDS was 10 percent, while in the case of obesity of the third degree—39 percent.

Researchers have concluded that, overall, approximately 5.4 percent of all SIDS cases are due to maternal obesity.

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