HEALTH visitors in Liverpool will be asked to check the sleeping arrangements for every newborn child in the city, after a baby girl died while sharing her parents’ bed.

Coroner Andre Rebello said he would write to Liverpool health authorities to ask them to change current practice during routine home visits.

Baby girl Chloe O’Sullivan died in November, aged just four months, after having slept in a double bed between parents Harry O’Sullivan, 30, and Lyndsey Roberts, 24, who are both smokers.

Her one and two-year-old siblings were also sharing the same bed, despite there having been a cot and another bed in the two-bedroomed flat. The heating had been left on all night.

The family-of-five always shared a  bed because their privately-rented two-  bedroomed first-floor flat in St Mary’s  Road, Garston, was too cold.
 
The infant slept between Ms Roberts,  24, and her father Mr O’Sullivan, 30,  while the other children, Callum, aged  one, and Caitlin, aged two, were at the  foot of the bed.
 
Ms Roberts said: "Our lovely Chloe  was always laughing and smiling.  From the moment she was born she  was smiling - she was such a happy  baby and never cried. We talk about Chloe all the time. We mention her every day.
 
"I have had to cope with losing her  because I have had to pick myself up for  the sake of the other kids. I do not think  I would be here now without them.
 
"I remember waking up and finding  her. It was just so horrible that I can’t  explain what went through my mind. I felt anger and shock.
 
"I have had all the children in the bed  with me and I always thought they were  safest there. I never thought it was  dangerous to do that. The kids have  their own bedroom, but it was too cold  in the flat to let them sleep in there."
 
Callum and Caitlin now sleep in  their own bedroom and the couple  intend to move to new accommodation  in the coming weeks.