In their retrospective review, Jump et al provide a detailed look at the causes and timing of childhood deaths in their emergency department (ED) over a 10-year period.1 Among the 58 children who died, most were infants <1 year old who died between the hours of 08:00 and noon during the winter months with a parent present. While the sample size is small, the results allow us to examine the rare phenomenon of childhood death in the ED and provide an opportunity to explore similarities and differences in childhood deaths in the UK and the USA. Equipped with this information, we can better allocate resources to help families and ED staff when the death of a child occurs and ultimately work to prevent future deaths.

Causes of death for children who die in the ED differ slightly from overall causes of childhood death in both the UK and the US. The authors note that perinatal events, congenital anomalies and sudden unexplained deaths are leading causes of childhood death across all ages and settings in the UK. For the cohort of children who died in the authors’ ED, sudden unexpected deaths were the leading cause, with infections and acute medical or surgical conditions emerging as the second and third most common causes. There was a bimodal distribution in ages of children who died in the ED, with 36% occurring in infants <1 year and 31% in adolescents aged 13–17 years. For infants, sudden unexplained death and infection were the leading causes of death in the ED, while in adolescents, most died from infections …