‘Powerful clue’ to high cot death rate

Press, 12 September 1987, Page 37

‘Powerful clue’ to high cot death rate

P A I Auckland A doctq-’s study has revealed la "powerful clue” to tie reasons for New Zealand’s high rate of cot deatte. While clinate and cot deaths havd been linked in the past! the medical director of I the Plunket Society, Dr lan Hassall’s study has repealed a striking similarity in the number of cot deaths in climatically similar parts of Australia aid New Zealand. T He found that 60 per cent of post-neonatal deaths in few Zealand and Australia toere caused by sudden hfant death syndrome. Tfe study was published in! the latest “Medical Journal of Australia.” Average sunmer and winter temperatures were

nearly identical in Tasmania and mid-zone New Zealand, represented by Wellington. The incidence of cot deaths was also similar, representing 4.3 per 1000 in Wellington and 4.5 per 1000 in Tasmania, the study said. A similar trend was found in comparisons with Auckland and the surrounding region, and Adelaide and South Australia. “The north-south gradient In the mortality in regions of high incidence parallels closely a mean monthly temperature gradient,” Dr Hassell said in his editorial commissioned by the journal. Dr Hassall said he was unable to do a climatic comparison with Dunedin and Australia as Tasmania was the south-ern-most state. Dunedin

has the highest rate of cot death in the world. Climate could not be the only cause, because countries similar to Sweden had a low incidence of cot death but had similar temperatures in parts of the country, he said. “So it must be something we do or don’t do in New Zealand. “It would be premature to suggest an answer, but obviously this is a powerful clue,” he said. Some countries with low cot death rates had a high rate of centrally heated homes. Next year’s study, funded by the Medical Research Council, was designed to answer more questions about cot death, Dr Hassall said.