Struggle to find cause

Press, 22 August 1989, Page 8

Struggle to find cause

PA Auckland If New Zealanders had as much, chance of winning a Lotto prize as they did of dying from cot deaths they would be happy, said Christchurch pediatrician, Dr Rodney Ford. Dr Ford told a conference on cot death at the week-end that the medical profession was struggling to find the cause of the country’s high cot death rate. In some areas the rate was as high as one in 100, *he said. Using the most recent statistics, very young parents, mobile lifestyles, poor infant weight gain, mild infection or low birth weight had been detected in some

cot death cases in New Zealand, Dr Ford said. But there were still many cases where no warning could be perceived. After the first week of life cot death was the most common single cause of infant death in this country. Although figures for non-Maoris have dropped slightly, according to statistics, Maori cot deaths continued to increase, with the latest figures available showing it to be twice that of non-Maoris. Ironically, the areas in New Zealand with the highest rate — Dunedin, Invercargill, Christchurch, Wanganui and Timaru — did not have high Maori populations, said Dr Ford.