Prone sleeping infants have a reduced ability to lose heat

Prone sleeping infants have a reduced ability to lose heat

The heat loss coefficients of a group of infants have been calculated and compared to see if there is a difference in the ability to lose heat between prone and non-prone sleeping infants. For a group of 43 infants aged 4–29 weeks, a simple mathematical model of exponential cooling in a body has bee...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Early human development Vol. 43; no. 2; pp. 109 - 116
Main Authors: Tuffnell, C.S., Petersen, S.A., Wailoo, M.P.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Lausanne Elsevier Ireland Ltd 02-10-1995
New York,NY Elsevier
Amsterdam
Subjects:
Anesthesia. Intensive care medicine. Transfusions. Cell therapy and gene therapy
Biological and medical sciences
Body temperature
Body Temperature Regulation
Emergency and intensive care: neonates and children. Prematurity. Sudden death
Female
Humans
Infant
Infant, Newborn
Intensive care medicine
Male
Mathematical model
Mathematics
Medical sciences
Models, Biological
Prone Position
Risk Factors
Sleep
Sleeping position
Sudden Infant Death
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)
Sleeping position
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)
Mathematical model
Body temperature
Human
Sleep
Position
Sudden death
Risk factor
Thermoregulation
Infant
Ventral decubitus
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Summary:The heat loss coefficients of a group of infants have been calculated and compared to see if there is a difference in the ability to lose heat between prone and non-prone sleeping infants. For a group of 43 infants aged 4–29 weeks, a simple mathematical model of exponential cooling in a body has been fitted to the fall in rectal temperature which occurs in infants at bedtime. One of the parameters yielded by the fitting process is the coefficient of thermal heat loss. After validation against the estimated heat loss from supine sleeping infants, the heat loss coefficient was compared at different sleep positions and gender. The mean heat loss coefficient, measured from the non-prone sleeping infants (0.269 W/ °C, S.D. 0.197) agreed well with the value calculated for supine sleepers with the same tog levels (0.4 W/ °C). Prone sleeping infants were found to have a considerably smaller heat loss coefficient which was approximately 60% of the value for non-prone sleeping infants ( P = 0.000097). Female infants were found to have a heat loss coefficient that was approximately 70% of that of male infants but this gender difference was only significant ( P = 0.025) for non-prone sleeping infants. These results suggest that infants sleeping in the prone position may be unable to lose heat as rapidly as those infants sleeping non-prone.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
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content type line 23
ISSN:0378-3782
1872-6232
DOI:10.1016/0378-3782(95)01659-7