Sudden infant death is one of the most devastating tragedies that can befall parents. It happens to approximately 160 Irish families a year, that is, three per week. Sudden infant death is where a small, apparently healthy baby is found dead with no reason for the death. It is a mysterious killer. No one knows how or why it happens but the heartbreak it causes is indescribable. Sometimes that grief becomes public as when TV Star Anne Diamond lost her four month old baby son during the summer. Last weekend she spoke bravely about her loss at the conference of the Irish Sudden Infant Death Association in Dublin.
During that conference an important research finding was made public. For the first time evidence was produced that something can be done to reduce the risk of cot death. In New Zealand and in Holland researchers found that, where the practice of sleeping babies on their tummies was changed to sleeping them on their backs or on their sides, the cot death rate dropped by almost a half. Nobody knows exactly why this has happened and no casual link has been established, but it is thought to be related to overheating. If babies become overwarm they are less likely to be able to lose the excess heat when lying on their tummies.
With such compelling evidence available it is important that the information be made available to all parents, and quickly through RTE programmes. Last weekend RTE made an effort on one of their programmes to put out this information. They concentrated on the findings and will have done a good public information job for those people who saw it. However, that is not good enough. Many people were concentrating on other things last weekend. I want the Minister to give an undertaking that he will finance a proper information programme for parents through maternity hospitals, through GPs, through health centres and, particularly on the media, to make sure that the message gets through clearly.
The Irish Sudden Infant Death Association puts out the clear message that babies should not sleep on their tummies but on their backs or on their sides. The four point plan also suggests that babies should not be allowed to become too warm, that the mother should not smoke during pregnancy, that smoking should not be allowed near the baby during the first year of life and that breast feeding for the first few weeks should be encouraged not because this reduces the risk of cot death but because it may reduce the risk of infection.
I hope the Minister of State will see the importance of these findings, particularly as the cost to the Department would be minimal and the gains considerable.
