MORE than half of cot deaths happen when a baby is sleeping with a parent, a study has revealed.
Researchers said this could be linked to the baby’s parent having been drinking or taking drugs.
Despite a dramatic drop in the rate of cot death in the UK since the early 1990s, experts are advising parents to avoid dangerous co-sleeping arrangements in order to help reduce deaths even further.
A team of researchers at the Bristol and Warwick universities studied all unexpected infant deaths – aged from birth to two years old – in the south west of England from January, 2003, to December, 2006.
The researchers said some of the safety messages were getting across to parents and may have contributed to the continued fall in the cot death rate.
However, the majority of the co-sleeping deaths occurred in a hazardous sleeping environment.
