A comprehensive study, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and Parental Smoking, carried out at Bristol University’s Institute of Child Life and Health and published in the Early Human Development medical journal, reviewed existing evidence from numerous studies on smoking and cot death and concludes that 9 out of 10 mothers who lose a baby to cot death are smokers.
UK national statistics suggest that smoking among pregnant mothers has fallen from 30% to 20% in the past 15 years, but the proportion of babies who died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome that were born to mothers who smoked during pregnancy has risen from 57% to 86%. It is thought that the rise in the proportion of SIDS mothers who smoke is at least partly a result of the 1991 Back to Sleep Campaign which urged parents to put their baby on to its back to sleep. Since then, the number of SIDS babies found lying face down has dropped from 89% to 24%. With this factor taken out of the equation, one of the main dangers which remains is exposure to smoke.
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