Maternal blood test could predict cot death

Published Sep 3, 2004

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Maternal blood test could predict cot death
16:11 02 September 04 NewScientist.com news service A blood test performed on pregnant women could predict whether their baby will be at risk of sudden infant death syndrome, suggests new research.
Raised levels of a fetal protein in maternal blood may help indicate sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), suggests the ten-year UK study.
A maternal blood test, taken routinely during the second trimester of pregnancy, shows the level of a fetal blood protein, called alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), as well as taking other measurements to test for congenital defects.
Women with high levels of AFP in their blood were three times more likely to give birth to a baby that later died from SIDS, found researchers.
The placenta acts as a filter between the maternal and fetal blood systems, allowing vital nutrients and oxygen to pass from mother to fetus, and waste products to be removed from the fetal blood. High levels of AFP in the maternal blood indicate that the placenta is failing to function properly and allowing fetal blood proteins to leak though - the baby will often be born with a low birth-weight, and risk of stillbirth is greater.
"It's been suggested that unexplained stillbirth and SIDS are related, and so we wanted to see if AFP levels in maternal blood was a factor in SIDS as well, says Gordon Smith, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Cambridge, UK, who led the study.
Prenatal environment
Smith and colleagues looked at the records of 214,532 women who gave birth in Scotland between 1991 and 2001, of whom 114 had babies who died of SIDS. The death-rate from SIDS per 10,000 births among women with the highest blood-AFP levels was 7.5, compared to 2.7 among those with the lowest AFP levels, found the researchers.
"Women in the study with the highest AFP levels had a one in 1000 risk of cot death, compared to the average risk of one in 2000 - if the general population of pregnant women had a low level of AFP, 50 percent of cot deaths wouldn't occur," Smith comments.

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