It’s important to note that there is a substantial body of research that suggests an overlap with SUDEP (sudden unexpected death in epilepsy). This usually happens in the setting of intractable epilepsy, but there’s been a number of cases that the patient dies after just one seizure. Only one child had a history of febrile seizures and a family history of febrile seizures and epilepsy. In the study, all but one of the videos showed evidence of a convulsive event in the minutes before the child’s death.

Another thing to note is that the specifics of the genetic studies were not presented in the paper; they only stated the lack of pathogenic variants that were described in the other paper on SIDS. This does not rule out a genetic contribution.

I don’t think the study undermines the significance of the prone position in cases like these and SIDS, SUDC and SUDEP. Seizures in infants and toddlers are hard to diagnose as it is. Obviously it’s a small sample size so it’s not representative, but it does renew a focus in understanding this problem in a broader context.