In order to establish criteria for early cerebral prognosis after acute cerebral hypoxic ischemic insult, we studied 31 cases of patients presenting, during their first year of life, cardio-respiratory arrests due to SIDS (21 cases), anesthesia (4 cases), other causes (6 cases). A favourable evolution was observed in 5 cases where coma lasted less than 8 hours. Conversely unfavorable evolution was seen in the 26 patients (21 deaths, 5 sequellae) where coma lasted more than 8 hours. Among 12 patients of this group surviving after the 4th day, 9 expressed seizures or status epilepticus. The poor evolution was correlated with hyperproteinorachia during the first 24 hours and with cortico-subcortical hypodensity on CT scan. Early EEG and transfontanellar echography seemed less useful to establish a prognosis, specifically to discriminate children surviving with and without sequelae.