According to a recent study conducted by pediatric anesthesiologist Daniel Rubens of Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle, the cause of new born babies of under one year old dying in their cribs due to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) may have been discovered.

Rubens study was published in July in the journal Early Human Development and says that contrary to recent beliefs, the cause of SIDS is actually provoked by a minute injury sustained by the infant during birth. Apparently, in most of the cases surrounding the SIDS cause of death, infant sustain an injury to the inner ear and the brain caused by a high-pressure surge of blood from the placenta during delivery.

Working without funding, Rubens, and his colleagues studied an archive of newborn hearing tests, comparing those given to babies who later died of SIDS with the testing of similar children who survived. They found that the babies who later died had lower hearing levels in the right ear.

Rubens believes the finding indicates that delicate vestibular hairs in the right inner ear were damaged during birth. He suggests that the hairs, known for their role in maintaining balance, are actually responsible for transmitting information that regulates breathing.

In SIDS infants, when environmental factors interfere with normal breathing, Rubens says, the signal to breathe when the body's carbon dioxide levels increase comes through weakly, if at all. If carbon dioxide levels climb high enough and oxygen levels drop low enough, it can start a death spiral.

The National Institutes of Health spends $76 million a year on SIDS research. Since a public-health campaign began in the early 1990s to focus on prevention of risk factors, such as putting the baby to sleep on his or her stomach and exposure to secondhand smoke, SIDS deaths have dropped more than 50%, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.