Children’s Health Alliance of Wisconsin (the Alliance) is Wisconsin’s grantee for the Sudden Unexpected Infant Death (SUID) Case Registry. A SUID is defined as the sudden and unexpected death of a baby less than 1 year old that does not seem to have a specific cause before investigation. The SUID Case Registry allows Wisconsin to perform SUID surveillance, by having local teams review the cases that occur in their counties and enter their data. From this data, the Alliance produces a SUID report every two years, providing insights on SUID data in Wisconsin. You can view the most recent report here, containing data from 2019-21.

At a glance
Although the number of SUIDs has decreased from 2017, the number of SUIDs has remained fairly steady since 2015. From 2019-21, there were 172 infants that died in Wisconsin from SUID. Nearly all of these deaths occurred in the infant’s sleep environment, and over half of these deaths occurred in an adult bed, which is an unsafe sleep location for an infant. An astonishing 86% of deaths that occurred in a sleep environment, occurred on account of soft objects or loose bedding – soft objects and loose bedding are a suffocation hazard for infants.

Disparities remain
Understanding SUID inequities helps determine where monetary resources and time need to be directed, in order to eliminate the unjust differences in SUID rates. Disparities in SUID continue to persist in Wisconsin, and they exist due to differing maternal education, maternal race and ethnicity and health insurance status. In fact, infants who were publicly insured, experienced SUID at a rate nearly eight times greater than those who were privately insured. Infants with Black mothers also experienced inequities in SUID, with a rate six times higher when compared to those with white mothers. Lastly, mothers with less than a high school education experienced SUID at a rate of nearly nine times higher than mothers with a college degree. These astonishing numbers necessitate further action and SUID prevention efforts.

To learn more, visit the SUID Case Registry webpage.

Written by:
Natasha Horst, MPH
Data Program Manager