Every fourth morning in Melbourne a mother goes to pick up her baby from its cotonly to find that her baby is dead. This statement, which ignores the seasonalincidence of cot death, does indicate however both the frequency and the tragicdrama of cot death.

The first recorded case of probable cot death in Australia was recorded in 1810.I say probable as we have no means of knowing whether it would really fit thecurrently accepted definition of cot death which is “the sudden andunexpected death of an infant in whom a thorough post mortem examination doesnot disclose an adequate cause of death”. Some infants do die suddenlyand unexpectedly from diseases such as myocarditis, meningitis, andgastro-enteritis. But these conditions are readily recognised by the pathologistwho examines the baby after death. It is when he is unable to find evidence ofany such lethal disease after a thorough examination that he records his verdictas cot death, or as it is usually labelled these days, Sudden Infant DeathSyndrome or SIDS.