SIDS is most likely multifactorial . However, much of the current literature on the problems of prone sleeping has an infectious focus. There is an increase in NP temperature in prone infants that leads to increased colonization of the naso-pharynx. Elevated temperatures also can stimulate toxin production in NP bacteria. See Fems Immunology And Medical Microbiology 1999;25. The whole issue is devoted to the role of infections and bacterial toxins in SIDS. "It was my impression that the apnea-SIDS theoretical connection was pretty well exploded some time ago, when its chief proponent's research was discredited--he had drawn his conclusions from only 5 cases with 3 of them within the same family --later found to have been infanticides, and not SIDS (the infamous Waneta Hoyt case). In addition some of the evidence was fudged. . . 25 years after the fact the Mom confessed & was convicted. (It's all very well laid out in a book called "The Death of Innocents" - I don't recall the authors' names). Consequently there is no evidence in the scientific literature (since no one was able to replicate the original researcher's findings) to relate SIDS to some failure to resume breathing after a pause or to abnormalities of the sleep cycle. A death due to prone sleeping is asphyxiation, not SIDS. SIDS by definition has no discernable cause. Am I right or wrong? Stephanie Walker, RN, FNP"