ABSTRACT
Crib death, or the sudden infant death syndrome, takes perhaps as many as 10,000 babies a year in the United States alone. It is the single most common "cause" of death in the first year of life, excluding the especially hazardous first few days after birth. Although there has been a shroud of mystery associated with the sudden infant death syndrome, which has tended to preclude the avid investigation of its causes, some investigators have been able to document psychophysiological conditions which are correlated with sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). SIDS victims had a greater proportion of young mothers of low socioeconomic and educational level, who lived in crowded housing, and had minimal prenatal care. The terms crib death and SIDS are in fact diagnoses of essential ignorance, which is to say that the labels are applied when no discernible sign of pathology in the deceased infant is present.
