Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS, also called crib death) is a fatal syndrome affecting sleeping human infants under a year old, characterized by a sudden cessation of breathing. It occurs with a frequency of ~0.5% in industrialized countries. Recent evidence indicates that at least some cases result from leaving the infant face down on bedding to sleep alone. Cases of SIDS have not been reported in captive great apes. This could be explained in part because great ape mothers carry their infants night and day and do not place their infants on bedding to sleep alone. In keeping with this, SIDS appears to be rare in hunter-gatherer tribes (true?).