Hello and welcome to the Witness Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Claire Bowes.

In December 1991 a British government campaign was launched to help prevent the sudden unexpected deaths of apparently healthy babies, known at the

time as cot deaths.

All across the Western world the number of babies dying in this way have been increasing for decades. I've been

speaking to the doctor who found out why. Significant numbers of babies were

dying suddenly and unexpectedly and inexplicably. in the UK as in Canada it was about one in 500

babies died in that way. In the late 1970s across the developed world more and more

families were suffering one of the worst bereavements possible. It doesn't get

easier. If you find this is getting easier, you're not doing it right.

There is no way you can deal with a family whose baby has died

and feel this is just a routine because it isn't.

Professor Peter Fleming has been helping families deal with what was commonly called

cot death for much of his 40-year career in medicine.

For some reason, which we didn't understand, the numbers of babies dying

suddenly and unexpectedly was increasing even

although all other aspects of child care, our understanding of care of sick babies

and so on was improving.

We were getting better at making babies better from known things, but we were seeing a slow and progressive increase in the numbers who died inexplicably.

He was lying in his cot looking just as though he was sleeping very peacefully and I went up to him because I always do and had a little prod and he was cold

Literally stone cold and like a little marble statue in his cot he'd obviously been dead for

quite a few hours. Back in 1991 the British broadcaster Anne Diamond

described in an interview the moment she found her four-month-old baby

...