FSID is the largest funder of cot death research and has been funding studies since 1971.

The Reduce the Risk of Cot Death campaign, introduced in 1991, followed results from FSID-funded and other research. The rate of cot death fell dramatically in the years immediately following the campaign's launch. However cot death is still a very real concern, claiming more lives than leukaemia, cancers, meningitis and road traffic accidents put together.
 
In 1996, after a thorough strategic review, we concluded that, in order to understand what goes wrong with babies, we had to know more about what “right” is. We consequently broadened our strategy to look at wider general infant care, as well as continuing with existing areas of research.  

This broadened strategy included investigation into how social disadvantage might affect infant care with the aim of developing interventions into infant care practices known to be associated with cot death.  Commissioned literature reviews have identified gaps in knowledge relating to smoking, sleeping arrangements, temperature control and recognition of illness. (Exploring Infant Health, 1999, Sue Conroy & Marjorie Smith, FSID).

Our current research priorities are:
• improving our ability to distinguish between natural deaths and the small proportion of deaths that may be due to abuse or inappropriate care
• exploring the possible link between abnormal physiology, infant care, and the risk of infant death. This means trying to identify ways in which infants at high risk of sudden infant death may differ from those at lower risk in the development of the systems that regulate breathing, heartbeat and circulation of the blood, ability to control body temperature etc
• exploring possible genetic factors that may predispose to death in infancy. It is now known that a small proportion of previously unexplained deaths are due to rare, inherited disorders of metabolism, but these probably account for no more than about 1% of the total. However, new metabolic diseases are being discovered all the time and it is possible that some currently unexplained deaths may be due to as yet unidentified conditions. Furthermore, even where rare inherited diseases are not responsible there may be interactions between different, normal genes that may increase risk when present in certain combinations. 

  
To find out more about FSID's research email research@fsid.org.uk