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Evolution and the sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)

Part III: Infant arousal and parent-infant co-sleeping

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Abstract

This paper extends the evolutionary and developmental research model for SIDS presented in previous articles (McKenna 1990a, 1990b). Data from variety of fields were used to show why we should expect human infants to be physiologically responsive in a beneficial way to parental contact, one form of which is parent-infant co-sleeping. It was suggested that on-going sensory exchanges (touch, movement, smell, temperature, etc.) between co-sleeping parent-infant pairs might diminish the chances of an infantile cardiac-respiratory crisis (such as those suspected to occur in some SIDS cases).

In this article we review recent epidemiological data and sleep research findings on SIDS to show how they relate to evolutionary and cross-cultural perspectives. Results of a preliminary study of the co-sleeping behavior of mother-infant pairs indicate that, with respect to sleep, arousal, and respiratory patterns, co-sleeping mother-infant pairs affect each other in potentially important ways. We suggest specifically that co-sleeping may shorten periods of consolidated sleep among young infants by causing them to arouse more frequently. Moreover, we suggest that partner-induced arousals might help the infant to confront sleep crises more competently. In the long run, these arousals might prevent the premature emergence of prolonged (adultlike) sleep bouts from which some infants have difficulty arousing—especially during a breathing pause or apnea.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Pomona College, 91711, Claremont, CA

    James J. McKenna

  2. University of California, Irvine

    Sarah Mosko

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James J. McKenna is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Pomona College. He also has an appointment as an Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics, Child Psychiatry, and Human Behavior at the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine. His primary research interests and many of his publications concern aspects of primate parenting and infant development among both human and nonhuman primates. For the past seven years he has been investigating from an anthropological perspective possible environmental correlates of the sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and has just finished a preliminary study on the physiological correlates of human parent-infant co-sleeping. He and his colleagues (Mosko and Dungy) are the first to have used standard polysomnographic techniques to document simultaneously human parent-infant co-sleeping.

Sarah Mosko is the Director of the University of California-Irvine Medical Center Sleep Disorder Laboratory and holds a Ph.D. in psychology from Princeton University. She also is a licensed clinical polysomnographer. Her professional interests include the neurobiology of sleep among the elderly. She has published extensively on topics in the neurosciences, having completed a Neurosciences Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of San Diego before accepting her present position as an Assistant Adjunct Professor of Neurology at the University of California Medical Center.

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McKenna, J.J., Mosko, S. Evolution and the sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Human Nature 1, 291–330 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02733987

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