An assessment of behavioural characteristics in infants who died of sudden infant death syndrome using the Early Infancy Temperament Questionnaire

An assessment of the behavioural peculiarities of infants dying of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) was carried out using the Early Infancy Temperament Questionnaire (EITQ). Thirty-six infants (25 boys and 11 girls aged 1-4 months) in whom the diagnosis of SIDS was confirmed by full necropsy and who died in St Petersburg from 1990 to 1992 entered the study, and the families were approached contemporaneously. A control group consisted of an equal number of age, sex, geographic distribution and date of birth matched live infants from the same city. The infants who died of SIDS had significantly lower estimates of activity in comparison with the babies from the control group. Behavioural defects may be a contributory factor and a sign of increased risk in some babies presenting with SIDS.