Signe Newcomb's son, Gaven, was found not breathing at a caregivers’ southeastern Michigan home in March 2004. He spent nearly two weeks on a respirator at a Toledo hospital, but never resumed breathing on his own. He was just over three months old when his parents had to make the painful decision to take him off the ventilator.

“As we feared, he could not breathe on his own. I held him as what little life was left passed from his chubby little body,’’ she recalled.

“When we got the coroner’s report a couple months later, they called his death `near-miss SIDS’ – a term I’ve never seen before or since – but the coroner said because he had survived so long on the ventilator, it wasn’t quite SIDS.

“But death is part of SIDS. It’s not as though he didn’t die. Still, I’m glad they didn’t say it was unexplained. That would be too vague, and I know a lot of parents are getting that diagnosis now.”