DES MOINES, Iowa — Sudden infant death loss can be painful and difficult for families to come to terms with.

Sudden unexpected infant deaths can happen to babies under the age of one. The causes include accidental suffocation, strangulation, and in some cases, can even be unknown.

Nationally, more than 1,000 deaths have been reported as undetermined.

Earlier this year, the University of Iowa received a grant from the Institute of Health to fund sudden infant death research.

It is a collaborative study between multiple universities, including the University of New Hampshire. The University of Missouri is the driving institution as well as Boston’s Children’s Hospital.

“They started getting interested in looking at a new part of the brain that had not previously been studied in SIDS,” University of Iowa Pathologist, Dr. Marco Hefti, said.

Researchers will be taking a closer look at the brain and heart tissue.

“The heart will beat on its own without any connection to the brain. But the regulation of how fast it beats, how much sort of drive it has, or how much it slows down comes from the brain as well,” Hefti said. “So the areas of the brain we’re interested in are involved in regulating that function. And the idea is that if they fail for whatever reason or malfunction, that could explain why some of these infants and children die without an obvious cause.”

He shared that this opportunity is unique to Iowa.

“It’s actually very difficult to get human tissue from SIDS death. Specifically, brain tissue, because in a lot of states, the laws are very complex,” Hefti said. “We have a very good, very well-organized, very well-structured statewide medical examiner system for death investigation. We have an awesome group of donor coordinators at the Iowa Donor Network. We’ve had amazing support from the Iowa City Foundation and from the University of Iowa.”

He also credits the university’s brain bank for playing a major role.

Currently, several families are participating in the study. Researchers hope more families will come forward to help with the study.

Families of a child who died from SIDS and had an autopsy done in Iowa from 2005 onwards can participate in the study.

“The hope would be that we can essentially be able to say, we can eliminate as many of these cases as possible,” Dr. Hefti said. “And ultimately, we no longer need to use the term because they will be diagnosed as whatever the underlying causes.”

Families interested in learning more or participating can email Dr. Hefti at marco-hefti@uiowa.edu or visit this website.