When Laura Gould’s daughter died in 1997, there was almost no research in unexpected deaths in children older than one. Gould helped change that.
In 1997, at 15 and a half months old, Maria Crandall was developing well and the “happiest little kid,” says her mom Laura Gould, a research scientist at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine. “There was no concern.”
Laura Gould’s daughter Maria Crandall in 1997, the year she unexpectedly died. “She was my little buddy,” Gould says.Gould thought she must have missed something. But the medical examiner couldn’t find anything wrong from the autopsy. The mystery of Maria’s death led Gould to help bring into existence a whole field of research on unexpected deaths in children.
Laura Gould, pictured here, helped to launch research into unexplained deaths in children. Identifying who is at risk for these rare, sudden deaths “is one of the biggest things I would love to accomplish.”After her daughter died in 1997, Gould, then a neurological physical therapist, searched for answers. The only information she could find was about infants who unexpectedly died.
A team of forensic pathologists and neurologists who specialize in epilepsy reviewed seven videos the registry received, of children who were 13 to 27 months old. Six of the childrenin January. After the seizure, some of the children appeared to have irregular or labored breathing before they became still.