Parents of Victims of the Sudden-Infant-Death Syndrome

To the Editor: The study by Schiffman et al. in the February 28 issue left some important questions unanswered. The authors state that “approximately 25 per cent of each group were cigarette smokers.” In a sample size of only 12, a lack of exact matching for smoking history between cases and controls could seriously bias the results. We would expect heavy smokers to have different ventilatory responses from nonsmokers. This issue is important because mothers of infants who died of the sudden-infant-death syndrome (SIDS) have been shown to smoke more during pregnancy than control mothers.¹ I would like to underscore.