Crib death (SIDS) is the most frequent cause of death for infants during the first year, striking 1 out of every 700-1,000. Scarce knowledge in the field of SIDS and its pathology has led to a continued and growing concern with finding an explanation, with the goal of being able to either predict or quickly diagnose the infant or term fetus.

A systematic study of the autonomic nervous system and cardiac system has been performed on a large number of infants and fetuses who died suddenly and unexpectedly, as well as in age-matched control cases. The neurological and cardiac findings...