Babies still dying needlessly from known, preventable causes 

18 January 2006

Our statement in response to Lancet paper 'Major epidemiological changes in sudden infant death syndrome: a 20-year population based study in the UK'

FSID, which provided funding for the research, welcomes the paper which shows that babies are still dying from a range of known potentially preventable causes:

1. Parents are still sleeping with a baby on a sofa, a highly risky practice, and sofa-sharing deaths are rising.
2. Though bedsharing deaths are thankfully dropping, still nearly 40% of deaths involve bedsharing and many more babies die bedsharing than sofa sharing - nationally about 135 bedsharing deaths compared to about 30 sofa sharing deaths per year.
3. Babies are still being slept on their side or front, which is long-known to increase the risk of death, rather than on their back. 
4. Deaths caused by parental smoking are increasing

Parents need to be made more aware that:

• sofa-sharing is a severe risk factor for sudden infant death; 
• bedsharing increases the risk of sudden infant death if either parent is a smoker, has drunk alcohol recently or taken drugs that make them sleepy, or if they are just very tired, or if the baby was born premature or of low birth weight.
• The safest place for a baby to sleep is on their backs in a cot by the side of the parents’ bed for the first six months.
• If they smoke, they are putting their babies at serious risk

Joyce Epstein, FSID’s Director said:
“Over 14,000 lives have been saved in the UK since the advice to reduce the risk of cot death was introduced in 1991.  But still over 300 babies every year in the UK are dying as cot deaths - that’s more babies over one month old than from any other cause.  The battle against sudden infant death is far from over.  It is absolutely vital that we get our safe infant care messages across more forcefully, especially among the more vulnerable sections of society, and that we continue our lifesaving research into the causes of cot death.”

FSID strongly endorses the authors’ call for deaths to be investigated according to a standard multi-professional protocol to learn as much as possible about the factors involved in sudden infant death and to provide better support for bereaved families.  FSID has been working with professionals throughout the country since 2000 to encourage voluntary uptake of a standard protocol.  Practices have changed in some parts of the country - 29 areas now improving their responses to sudden infant deaths.  Yet how a baby’s death is investigated and how the family are treated is still very much a postcode lottery. The Government must act now to make a standard protocol compulsory, as recommended by the Baroness Helena Kennedy working group report in 2004.

Notes to editors:

FSID requests that the Helpline number 020 7233 2090 and website address www.sids.org.uk be reproduced in all reporting.

Interviews with FSID representatives and cot death parents should be possible. 

Pictures depicting the advice to reduce the risk of cot death are available on request.

Media enquiries:
Colin Brook, Communications officer: 020 7222 8001 / 020 7227 5210
Joyce Epstein, Director: 020 7222 8001 / 020 7227 5209 / 07904 198 552 (out of hours)

 

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