I found this article and thought it was pretty cool. If you would like to read it for yourself, you can find it here.
A study was conducted by the Rhode Island department of health that connected SIDS to a particular type of inner ear damage. What that study concluded was that babies with this type of inner ear damage have a hard time waking up when they experience a build up of carbon dioxide in the body. Since they don't wake, they don't shift positions or cry and the carbon dioxide continues to build until they suffocate.
Side note: A build up of carbon dioxide will occur anytime you are not breathing normally. This includes any time you have a cold, are too hot (so your body pants to cool down), or your nose and mouth are partially blocked (head under covers, arm in front of face, etc). Normally it is not a big deal. You will either take a deep breath or move and the problem is solved.
A pediatric anesthesiologist took that study and went a little further. He damaged the inner ear of some mice in a similar manner to what the study found. He then lightly put them to sleep using anesthesia. The mice which had their inner ear damaged were more difficult to wake up than mice without the damage.
He is currently seeking funding for the next step. He has test he hopes will detect this inner ear damage, and identify babies that have a greater risk for SIDS. He would like to use it as part of the newborn hearing test that is routinely done to see if the test is able to identify the babies that have a larger than normal SIDS risk factor.
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