Better advice brings big fall in cot deaths

Fewer infants are dying in England and Wales because parents are now heeding advice to prevent cot deaths, experts say.

Government statistics show the lowest-recorded infant mortality rate ever. Since 1971, the rate has fallen by 65 per cent, from 17.5 per thousand live births to 6.1 in 1995.

Ralph Settatree, clinical director for the Confidential Inquiry into Stillbirths and Deaths in Infancy, a government-funded research group, advised parents to make sure babies slept on their backs and not their sides or front. Susan Emmett