Small intestinal mucosal abnormalities in post-perinatal deaths.

Examination of small intestinal mucosa from cases of post-perinatal death in Sheffield between September 1980 and September 1981 showed mucosal changes before death in 18 of 78 cases (20%). There was no significant difference in prevalence between explained and unexplained deaths, nor was there any positive association with viral isolation from the small intestine. The lesion was much more common in males than females and showed a strong association with bottle feeding--no infant wholly breast fed showed an enteropathy. There was a low incidence of symptoms referrable to the gastrointestinal tract among affected infants, and no appreciable evidence of failure to thrive, as reflected by the postmortem body weight, was present. Mucosal changes of the small intestine in cases of sudden infant death syndrome have previously been reported and attributed to heatstroke. Although the finding of similar lesions in infants who died explicably does not appear to support this view, overheating is difficult to exclude as most of the explained deaths with a mucosal lesion occurred at home.