Cot deaths survey report completed

Press, 18 March 1985, Page 24

Cot deaths survey report completed

NZPA-AAP Glasgow Scottish doctors are set to publish the largest survey made on cot deaths. The report on five years work shows that smothering is a factor in only a small number of cases. The doctors have scrutinised 800 deaths from the mystery condition that kills more babies than any other illness. Their findings will be printed in the medical magazine, the “Lancet,” The previous largest survey checked just 230 deaths in England and Wales. The doctors claim that no single “popular belief’ on causes of cot deaths is more accurate than the next and adamant that smothering, both intentional and unintentional, accounted for such a tiny number of cases as to be insignificant. Now the medical team, from Glasgow and Edinburgh sick children’s hospitals, are to set up a trust with the aim to make big inroads into the prevention of the syndrome that kills more than one in 400 babies, “At last the medical profession has facts to work with and we can get on with the battle against the biggest child killer,” said the

chairman of the new body, Professor Gavin Arneil. “Until now we were all largely working in the dark or at best on sudden flashes of inspiration. Now we have the figures to go about tackling this silent epidemic in a proper scientific manner. It was the only way we could get real answers. “Our work without a doubt shows that suffocation is the cause of death in only a small number of cases. No other one factor either looks overwhelmingly important, and so our work is cut out for us.

“What we do know is that baby boys are more likely to be hit, and babies born into a family that has already experienced a cot death." Professor Arneil said mothers-to-be should give up smoking and drinking and, when the baby is born, breast-feed. “Parents should not bring their baby into bed to sleep with them and ideally should have the cot in their bedroom for the first few months. Babies must not be left longer than eight hours unchecked,” he said.