Agonies of cot deaths

IF anyone knows what Kerry and Paul Wright must have been going through in the months since the death of their baby son Harrison, it is Jennie Tegetmeier.

She lost not one but two babies to what is now known as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

The only words of comfort she can offer: you will get through it.

Jennie's first son Jacob was four and a half months old when he died in 1967, before anyone had heard of cot death syndrome.

He was a healthy, hearty, happy baby and she had no reason to be worried when she put him down to go to sleep that day.

Three-quarters of an hour later she looked in to check on him, and he was dead.

"It was appalling," she says now. "I felt just... disbelief and absolute terror, that someone who was solely in my charge should have just died like that."

Jennie lived next to a police station. She rushed round to seek help and a policeman tried to perform artificial respiration while a doctor was called. But it was no good. Jacob was beyond saving.

Jennie remembers the awful, empty feeling: the desperate ache to hold her child in her arms again. This is a common feeling among mothers who lose children in such an awful way, she says. "People have told me they have this physical ache, that their arms have ached after their baby has died."

Jennie coped by getting pregnant again almost at once. "It was all I wanted to do," she says.

Toby, her second son, grew up to be a healthy adult with children of his own.

But in 1972, five years after the death of Jacob, tragedy struck for Jennie again. Her third son, Japhet, also died. He was six weeks old.

Jennie had been visiting her mother in the south of England and was driving back to York with friends. Japhet was safely asleep in the back of the car.

Then she noticed something was wrong. Japhet stirred restlessly and made a noise.

Jennie picked him up: and he was changing colour, his lips going blue.

They stopped at a service station and called an ambulance. Japhet was rushed to hospital: but it was too late.

This second tragedy was devastating, says Jennie. "I really thought we had a chance to save him. But there was nothing they could do." During the following years, Jennie had four more children. All grew up healthy and happy, and her growing family helped Jennie come to terms with what had happened.

"I was not going to be cheated of what I felt I did best, which was being a mother," she says.

But she fully understands the worry that Kerry Wright - who is pregnant again - has expressed about her latest, as-yet unborn child.

Kerry told the Evening Press she was "petrified" the same thing could happen again. Jennie went through that same feeling with each of her four later children, she says.

"I had a marvellous pregnancy each time, but as soon as the babies were born I asked myself why I had put myself through this terrible anxiety again," she says.

"I can't say I enjoyed the first few weeks of my babies' lives. It was constant anxiety and I felt I wanted to watch over them all through the night.

"They were dreadful sleepers, but I'm sure that was because I was prodding and poking them all the time!"

It is more than 30 years since Jacob and Japhet died but her two lost sons remain as much a part of the family as her other five children, says Jennie.

Apart from her family, one of the ways Jennie found of coping was by setting up a support group for parents who had been through a similar loss.

Among those she helped were Kath and Phil Burton.

Their daughter Julia died in 1978, aged seven and a half months.

It was Easter Monday, Kath recalls. With it being a Bank Holiday she and Phil had had a bit of a lie-in. About 10.20am she went to check on their daughter. "And she was cold," recalls Kath.

They did not have a phone, so Kath ran for help. But there was nothing that could be done.

Afterwards, with Julia so suddenly gone, their lives felt so empty, Kath says.

"I was only 22," she says "And when you have your first baby everything revolves around her. Suddenly we had nothing to do."

Like Jennie, she found herself quickly becoming pregnant again. Having Georgina helped.

"In the nicest possible way it took my mind off things," says Kath.

"I had another baby to look after, something else to do."

She also found that talking about her loss made her feel better. And she and Phil started doing something they continue to do to this day: raising money to help research into the causes of cot death.

Since then, she believes they have raised just short of £25,000.

She accepts it may not be everyone's way of coping - everybody is different. But for her it worked.

"It was something positive."

Kath and Phil now have two grown-up daughters - Georgina, 26, and her younger sister Hazel, 23.

But Julia is not forgotten. Georgina and Hazel know all about her, and her picture is kept in the house.

Often, Kath finds herself wondering about how Julia would have turned out if she hadn't been so cruelly taken away. "I think she would have been dark and quite tall," says Kath.

"One of my other daughters is quite tall."

Sensible precautions to safeguard your baby

A baby dies almost every day in the UK from cot death - defined simply as the "sudden and unexpected death of a baby for no obvious reason."

Great strides have been made in understanding the condition - the death rate today is only one quarter what it was in 1991.

But, even now, no one fully understands exactly what causes babies to die in such circumstances, says Colin Brook of charity The Foundation For The Study Of Infant Deaths.

A number of risk factors have been identified, however - and experts have been able to draw up guidelines for parents.

Baby Harrison Wright died while sleeping on his dozing father's shoulder on the sofa.

His anguished parents Kerry and Paul spoke of their shock at being told that babies were more at risk while sleeping on their parents than in their cots.

That is one risk factor, Colin Brook admits - although exactly why, nobody is sure.

"One of the pieces of advice we give to parents is not to sleep together on a sofa, armchair or settee," he says.

Other key steps for parents to take to reduce the risk to their baby include:

- Cut out smoking during pregnancy

- Do not let anyone smoke in the same room as your baby

- Place your baby on his or her back to sleep

- Do not let your baby get too hot

- Keep your baby's head uncovered - and place them with their feet towards the foot of the cot, to prevent wriggling down under the covers

- If your baby is unwell, seek medical advice promptly

- It is safest for your baby to sleep in a cot in your bedroom for the first six months.

- It is dangerous to share a bed with your baby if you or your partner are smokers, have been drinking alcohol, take drugs or medication that makes you sleepy or simply feel very tired

- It is very dangerous to sleep together on a sofa, armchair or settee

- There are also risks of accidents when bedsharing with babies: you may roll over in your sleep and suffocate your baby, or your baby could get caught between the wall and the bed, or the baby could roll out of the bed and be injured.

Only about one in 2,000 babies die of cot death, Colin Brook says. Most deaths occur in babies under six months old.

The Foundation For The Study Of Infant Deaths runs a helpline for any parents worried about their baby, or who are trying to come to terms with the loss of a child.

Call: 0870 787 0554.

Updated: 09:39 Tuesday, April 12, 2005