Public health is usually a slow business. First the epidemiologists must persuade the medical profession. Then they need to educate their patients. One day, there will be a glimmer of a result. Getting people to stop smoking is a classic study. But very occasionally, results can be dramatic. The latest statistics from England and Wales show the number of babies dying inexplicably in the first few months of life has fallen to its lowest level ever, down by 80% from its peak, to less than one baby in 3,000. Dr Peter Fleming at Bristol University, whose research in the 1980s showed premature babies did better if put to sleep on their front, decided he should test other data on the effect of putting healthy babies on their backs. The results were so spectacular that he did not believe them. But when he wanted to do a repeat trial with a control group of babies sleeping on their front, he found that midwives and health visitors were all so convinced by the results of his first trial that all newborns in his region were already sleeping on their backs. Sudden infant deaths fell by 70% in the first year. Now the Lullaby Trust, which funded his research, estimates that since the “back to sleep” campaign was launched in England and Wales in 1991, as many as 20,000 babies have been saved.
