What does Dr Sprott say about orthodox crib death prevention advice?
1) Don’t smoke around your baby. Recent history refutes any suggestion that smoking causes crib death, says Dr Sprott. Smoking was very common in Britain in the 1930s and 1940s, but crib death was virtually non-existent. Smoking is prevalent in present-day Russia and Japan, but the crib death rates are low. No cause-and-effect relationship between smoking and crib death has been established they are socio-economic parallels. Put another way, smoking is more common among poorer people, and so is crib death. But it does not follow that smoking is therefore a crib death risk factor. 2) Don’t bedshare with your baby if you also smoke or smoked during pregnancy. Misleading advice, says Dr Sprott. The risk posed by bedsharing does not arise from smoking it arises from the mattress. Adults’ mattresses very frequently contain the same chemical and fungi as babies’ mattresses, and therefore they can generate the same toxic gas/es. (For physiological reasons adults are not put at risk by this ga
