4.6 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 24 March 2017
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Ever since a BBC article highlighted the use of baby boxes in Finland they have become a bit of a phenomenon. They?re not new though Finland has been doing this for 75 years. The simple cardboard boxes are given to families for their new born babies to sleep in. Since their introduction cot death and has fallen and child health improved. Governments and individuals across the world have adopted them and companies have sprung up selling them. But think about for minute ? can a cardboard box on its own really have such a huge effect ? Elizabeth Cassin and Charlotte McDonald have been looking at the truth behind the story.
Presenter: Charlotte McDonald
Producer: Elizabeth Cassin
(Photo:One of Scotland's first baby boxes is seen at Clackmannanshire Community Health Centre. Credit: Getty Images)
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0:00.0 | Why do some big successful brands go bust? |
0:05.0 | Toast is back for a new series, taking a look at the decisions that often left investors burnt. |
0:11.0 | I'm Sean Farrington, a BBC business journalist. I'll be hearing about the hype. |
0:15.0 | They're going to do the deal that makes them the most money at that point of time. |
0:19.0 | And I'm picking what went wrong, talking to owners and employees to ask, what can we learn? |
0:25.4 | It was being undercut by similar rivals. It just couldn't survive. |
0:30.3 | Toast. Listen first on BBC Sounds. |
0:34.0 | This is the BBC. |
0:37.4 | Hello and welcome to more or less on the BBC World Service, |
0:41.6 | your statistical guide to the numbers in the news and in life. |
0:45.1 | I'm Charlotte MacDonald and with me is Elizabeth Catton. |
0:48.0 | Hi Charlotte. |
0:48.8 | Hello. |
0:50.0 | In June 2013, a reporter published an article on the BBC website that had an extraordinary impact. |
0:57.6 | It wasn't about world politics or humanitarian disaster. |
1:01.0 | No, this article was entitled, Why Finnish Babies Sleep in Carbald boxes? |
1:06.5 | The article explained the origin of Finland's policy of giving every pregnant mother a cardboard box filled with baby products, |
1:13.9 | such as clothes, sleeping bag, nappies, bedding and a mattress, and how the box itself could be used as a bed. |
1:20.7 | It wasn't even a new idea. Finland had been doing this for 75 years. |
1:25.1 | The article has been viewed over 13 million times and has sparked global |
1:30.5 | interest in the policy idea. Why? Well, Finland has one of the lowest infant mortality rates |
1:36.4 | in the world. According to the UN, the global rate is 32 deaths per thousand live births. |
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