Dr. Alex Goberman, a faculty member in the College of Health and Human Services , presented the results of his research on the topic during a presentation at the hospital. His partner in the project was Sue Johnson, director of the hospital's obstetrics and women's care unit, with Judy Wink, obstetrics secretary, and the OB nurses participating.

Jefferson Holcomb, chairman of the hospital/university advisory committee, said the group had been around for four years working on collaborative efforts that would benefit both institutions. He explained BGSU has an initiative called the “Scholarship of Engagement” which is a national trend in higher education.

“For the College of Health and Humans Services, that is what we're all about–partnerships between researchers and scholars and the university and the community,” he stated.

As part of that partnership, Goberman, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Disorders, did a study on “The effects of infant position on acoustic features of crying,” using infants born in the hospital's obstetrics unit.

“This research is related to Sudden Death Syndrome,” he stated, defining SIDS as the sudden death of an infant under one year of age which remains unexplained after a thorough investigation, including an autopsy.

He said the highest incidence of SIDS occurs when infants are two to three months old. “There are infants who have no known health problems, who go to sleep at night and don't wake up.”

Risk factors for SIDS include the infant's sleeping position, whether on its belly or back; the softness of the bedding; whether the mother smoked during her pregnancy; overheating of the baby; preterm birth or low-weight birth and being a male baby.

Goberman observed that since the 1992 start of the “Back to Sleep” campaign, which encourages parents and caregivers to put babies on their backs, the incidence of SIDS has decreased 50 percent.

“That alone is enough to tell us the position of the baby is a risk factor.” Goberman said, adding, “The incidence has gone down significantly but it hasn't gone down to zero, so there's still work to be done.”

Research into the causes of SIDS has studied whether the infants might have suffocated, had an obstruction in their throat, had respiratory problems or had a decreased arousal in response to life-threatening events during their sleep.

Goberman explained the theory is that all infants at night experience apnea, a temporary stoppage of their breathing. An infant's response to that is arousal, typically taking in a big breath. The theory continues that infants who die of SIDS are not arousing properly to the apnea.

For his research, Goberman's goal was to use newborn infant cries or cry analysis to investigate SIDS. Since all infants at the hospital have a state-mandated PKU blood draw, he tape recorded their cries in response to the test.

He collected a wide variety of data on 75 infants and performed an acoustics analysis on their cries, including spectral peak and tilt, mean spectral energy (their arousal in response to pain), their overall duration of crying and more. Sixty-two provided useable crying samples, 35 on their bellies and 27 on their backs.

Goberman found infants experienced less arousal, less response to pain when they were on their belly. He said he found support that belly-sleeping babies have decreased arousal in spite of life-threatening events during sleep.

“I'm looking to publish these results as soon as possible. These are very timely results,” he said. Goberman also wants to investigate external funding and examine additional infants at risk for SIDS.

–Jenise Fouts, Sentinel-Tribune

Excerpted with permission: Sentinel-Tribune