A practical classification schema incorporating consideration of possible asphyxia in cases of sudden unexpected infant death.

Although the rate of the sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) has decreased over the last two decades, medical examiners and coroners are increasingly unwilling to use the SIDS diagnosis, particularly when there is an unsafe sleeping environment that might pose a risk for asphyxia. In order to reliably classify the infant deaths studied in a research setting in the mixed ancestory population in Cape Town, South Africa, we tested a classification system devised by us that incorporates the uncertainty of asphyxial risks at an infant death scene. We classified sudden infant deaths as: A) SIDS (where only a trivial potential for an overt asphyxial event existed); B) Unclassified-Possibly Asphyxial-Related (when any potential for an asphyxial death existed); C) Unclassified-Non-Asphyxial-Related (e.