Sleep and Nasal Obstruction

In Reply.— While we agree with Shaw that nasal obstruction is one possible cause of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), the purpose of our article was to highlight the pitfalls in diagnosing obstructive apnea. Implicit in his letter is a criticism of the direction of SIDS research over the past few years: countless hours of "respiratory" monitoring of questionable physiologic quality and analysis of dubious meaning, usually followed by complex statistical comparisons of little clinical import. We share this view and hope that research along such lines will cease shortly to make demands on already strained financial resources.