SUDC and the SUDC Foundation
What is SUDC?
Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood (SUDC) is a category of death in children between the ages of 1 and 18 that remains unexplained after a thorough investigation, including an autopsy. Most often, a seemingly healthy child goes to sleep and never wakes up. At this time, we do not know what causes SUDC, how to predict it or how to prevent it. A medical examiner or coroner could rule a child’s death SUDC when s/he completes a thorough evaluation and finds no other cause of death.
SUDC Facts
SUDC is believed to be rare; occurring in about one in every 100,000 children. Every year in the United States, approximately 400 children are lost to SUDC, (R96-R99). It is most common in young children and is the fifth leading category of death among children between the ages of 1 and 4.
We do not know exactly how often SUDC occurs–in the US or around the world. Because the World Health Organization (WHO) lacks a specific way to record sudden and unexplained deaths in children that have been thoroughly investigated, it is impossible to know how widespread the problem is.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2018, SUDC (R96-R99) affected:
• 231 children ages of 1-4 years;
• 46 children ages of 5-9 years;
• 42 children ages of 10-14 years; and
• 73 teens ages of 15-18 years.