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lullabytrust.org.uk

Back to Sleep (UK) / Reduce the Risk of Cot Death

Also: Reduce the Risk of Cot Death · Back to Sleep (Department of Health, 1991)

“Back to Sleep”

National campaign launched in December 1991 after the charity FSID and TV presenter Anne Diamond, whose son died of cot death in 1991, lobbied for a version of New Zealand's campaign. It ran prime-time TV and national newspaper ads, with leaflets in health centres and shops, telling parents to put babies on their backs, avoid overheating and smoke. Later UK advice dropped the side position and added warnings about sofas and sharing a bed after alcohol or smoking.

Years
1991–now
Country
United Kingdom
Topic
Infant sleep
Asks people to
Substitute
Strategy
Simple instruction
Channel
Clinical settingPrintTV
Audience
Parents
Parents of newborns in the UK

Evidence

ObservationalPositive

Cot deaths reportedly halved from 912 in 1991 to 456 in 1992 (Hiley & Morley 1994, figures seen in a bmj.com snippet, not read in full text). In Avon, the number of SIDS deaths in the parental bed halved over 20 years while their share rose from 12% to 50% because deaths in solitary sleep fell; deaths shifted towards deprived families (47% to 74%) and smoking mothers. Deaths had begun falling before the campaign (media coverage and the Avon intervention), so attribution is partly contested. Twenty-five years on only 52% of mothers in deprived Bristol areas named sleep position as a risk reducer, and in 2020 the share of SIDS infants found prone (about 40%) was unchanged.

Sponsor (who paid)

  • Department of Health (England) Foreign government
  • Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths (now The Lullaby Trust) NGO

Credits (who made it)

Not recorded yet.

Related campaigns

Sources

  1. Hiley CM, Morley CJ. Evaluation of government's campaign to reduce risk of cot death. BMJ 1994 evaluation · 1994 · DOI 10.1136/bmj.309.6956.703 · PMID 7950523
  2. Blair PS et al. Major epidemiological changes in SIDS: a 20-year population-based study in the UK. Lancet 2006 evaluation · 2006 · DOI 10.1016/S0140-6736(06)67968-3 · PMID 16443038
  3. Fleming PJ et al. Environment of infants during sleep and risk of SIDS: 1993-5 CESDI case-control study. BMJ 1996 evaluation · 1996 · DOI 10.1136/bmj.313.7051.191 · PMID 8696193
  4. Hilliard N et al. Informal knowledge transfer before formal health education programmes: HIV and SIDS in England and Wales. BMC Public Health 2007 evaluation · 2007 · DOI 10.1186/1471-2458-7-293 · PMID 17941972
  5. Pease AS et al. Mothers' knowledge and attitudes to SIDS risk reduction messages: UK survey. Arch Dis Child 2017 evaluation · 2017 · DOI 10.1136/archdischild-2017-312927 · PMID 28814422
  6. Pease A et al. Changes in background characteristics and risk factors among SIDS infants in England 1993-2020. BMJ Open 2023 evaluation · 2023 · DOI 10.1136/bmjopen-2023-076751 · PMID 37832988
  7. The Lullaby Trust celebrates 25th anniversary of Back to Sleep campaign sponsor
  8. The Lullaby Trust: our history sponsor
  9. Britain: Incidence reduced by two thirds in five years news · 1995 · DOI 10.1136/bmj.310.6971.7a
  10. What do mothers remember about the 'back to sleep' campaign? evaluation · 1995 · DOI 10.1136/adc.73.6.496 · PMID 8546502
  11. Prevalence of risk factors for sudden infant death syndrome in South East England before the 1991 national ‘Back to Sleep’ health education campaign evaluation · 1995 · DOI 10.1093/oxfordjournals.pubmed.a043120 · PMID 8527180

Research notes

Created 2026-10-23 from the sleep campaign literature search (PubMed and web search; OpenAlex was unreachable), see docs/sleep-campaigns-literature.md. Findings are paraphrased from abstracts, not full texts; official URLs come from search results and were not opened. Lullaby Trust claims an 81% fall in the SIDS rate by 2002 (search snippet, not verified). Wikipedia's 'over 2,000 a year to about 300' figure is unsourced here; do not use. The Lullaby Trust also promotes baby sleeping bags (see Glover Williams & Finlay 2018, PMID 30297442). URL seen in WebSearch results; Merged 2026-10-23: a duplicate record (uk-reduce-the-risk-of-cot-death) written in parallel by the OpenAlex sleep search (PR #38) was folded in; 3 sources added from it. Its summary read: "UK Department of Health campaign launched in December 1991 telling parents not to put babies to sleep on their front, not to expose them to cigarette smoke and not to let them overheat. Cot deaths in England and Wales fell by about two thirds within five years."

Record cases/uk-reduce-the-risk-cot-death.json, updated 2026-10-23· Link to this campaign