News

Bottle-fed babies in parents’ bed at greater risk of cot death

(27 February 2003)

Research at the Sleep Lab at the University’s Queen’s Campus in Stockton has shown that bottle-fed babies are at greater risk of cot death than breast-fed babies if they share a bed with their mothers.

The team in the Sleep Lab has discovered that breastfeeding mothers instinctively adopt a safe sleeping position, curled around their baby with its head at breast level. Mothers who bottle-feed, however, are far more likely to turn their back on their sleeping baby or to place its head level with their own on a pillow as if they were sleeping with another adult.

This item was reported in The Times, Evening Standard (25/02/03) and Northern Echo and BBC News Online (27/02/03).