BMJ 1999;319:697-700 ( 11 September )

Education and debate

    For debate
    Time to put "cot death" to bed?
    Not time to put cot death to bed

For debate

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The increased awareness of deliberate harm to infants by parents and carers has prompted debate on the terminology used for "cot deaths." These two papers give historical context of the debate and consider whether the use of "sudden infant death syndrome" should be abandoned.

M A Green, emeritus professor. 

Department of Forensic Pathology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S3 7ES

forensic.path@sheffield.ac.uk

In a recent editorial in the Journal of Clinical Pathology I argued that pathologists should approach sudden and unexpected death in the first year of life with greater caution than may have been applied in recent years.1 In consequence of the increased awareness of deliberate harm by parents and carers reported by Meadow and so graphically captured on video recordings by Southall and Banks,2-4 I said that the term "not ascertained" should be used much more widely than it is at present. I am fully aware of the distress that such an approach may cause to recently bereaved and totally innocent parents. I am also old . . . [Full text of this article]
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Debate on cot death
J L Emery, Alison J Waite, C J Bacon, Peter Reder, and Sylvia Duncan
BMJ 2000 320: 310. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Vaughan, J. R., Kautt, P. M. (2009). Infant Death Investigations Following High-Profile Unsafe Rulings: Throwing Out the Baby with the Bath Water?. Policing 0: pan083v1-pan083 [Abstract] [Full text]  
  • Sesardic, N. (2007). Sudden Infant Death or Murder? A Royal Confusion About Probabilities. Br J Philos Sci 58: 299-329 [Abstract] [Full text]  
  • Brookman, F., Nolan, J. (2006). The Dark Figure of Infanticide in England and Wales: Complexities of Diagnosis. J Interpers Violence 21: 869-889 [Abstract]  
  • Limerick, S R, Bacon, C J (2004). Terminology used by pathologists in reporting on sudden infant deaths. J. Clin. Pathol. 57: 309-311 [Abstract] [Full text]  
  • Stanton, A N (2003). Sudden unexpected death in infancy associated with maltreatment: evidence from long term follow up of siblings. Arch. Dis. Child. 88: 699-701 [Abstract] [Full text]  
  • Becroft, D M O, Thompson, J M D, Mitchell, E A (2001). Nasal and intrapulmonary haemorrhage in sudden infant death syndrome. Arch. Dis. Child. 85: 116-120 [Abstract] [Full text]  
  • Emery, J L, Waite, A. J, Bacon, C J, Reder, P., Duncan, S. (2000). Debate on cot death. BMJ 320: 310-310 [Full text]  

Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Time to put "cot death" to bed?
Henry A Maslowski
bmj.com, 22 Oct 1999 [Full text]
debate on cot death
C J Bacon
bmj.com, 11 Nov 1999 [Full text]
How is guilt defined?
Ken Norman
bmj.com, 20 Nov 1999 [Full text]
Cot deaths need full enquiries
John L Emery, et al.
bmj.com, 23 Nov 1999 [Full text]
Murder case 'cot-deaths'
John Edwards
bmj.com, 23 Nov 1999 [Full text]
Vaccination and Cot Death
John P Heptonstall
bmj.com, 24 Nov 1999 [Full text]
There is no simple calculation
Ken Norman
bmj.com, 16 Mar 2000 [Full text]
Not time to put cot death to bed...
Mark R Funnell, et al.
bmj.com, 5 Aug 2003 [Full text]
Access jobs at BMJ Careers
Whats new online at Student BMJ