Anna has worked for the last 16 years in Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy prevention. She completed her PhD in 2016 at the University of Bristol, funded by The Lullaby Trust, exploring decision-making in families with infants at increased risk of SIDS. She also conducted a review of the risks of swaddling and SIDS. The findings from these have informed our risk reduction campaigns and have contributed to the overall improvement of baby sleep safety.

What is it that draws you to working in this area / what are you passionate about? 

There is so much hope and potential to make a difference with this work. From prevention to bereavement support, there are always changes that can make a huge difference for families. I love getting to work with families directly, we are always reaching out via our research to understand things better, to make sure that they tell us what kind of research they want us to do. I also really love working with health professionals, they have such difficult jobs and they don’t get enough appreciation – they literally save lives every day! I think they are amazing and so to be able to include them in our research is an honour.

SIDS claims the lives of approximately 4 babies a week in the UK, and the latest ONS stats have shown that SIDS rates have remained similar to last year. How have you seen the rates of SIDS change over the years? 

The rates have been falling, but too slowly. We won’t have another huge drop like we did in the 1990s again, but what we do see is the inequality in deaths becoming more apparent. It was always there, but as the rates decreased this inequality showed up more. We have lots of work to do. 

What are the priority areas and goals going forward when it comes to supporting families and improving infant sleep safety? (We know they’re very similar to ours, and I guess that’s why we’re asking!) 

We now have the National Child Mortality Database, which is so important. It means that we have up to date, detailed data on every death and we can use this to look for patterns. We can also monitor what happens to rates as we introduce new ways of talking about safer sleep, new interventions, and see if they are working as they should. We need to know much more about things like language barriers, marginalised groups like refugees and asylum seekers, and Gypsy, Roma and Traveller families, too. We need to make sure that safer sleep advice continues to be based on the best available evidence, and is tailored to meet the needs of each family. We also need to learn from health professionals about how they have tricky conversations about risk with families where the risks are already higher and help all health professionals to feel confident and motivated to talk about safer sleep in the most effective way.  

How do you think we’ll get there? 

The same way we’ve got to where we are now – with dedicated people working well together. We need researchers, parents, doctors, charities, and policy people to continue to ask the right questions, look for answers, and put those answers into action so that no baby dies in this way. We still have a lot of work to do, and it’s going to need us to be more determined than ever.  

Why do you continue to work with The Lullaby Trust (as Chair of SAG)? Which areas of our work are you most passionate about? 

The Lullaby Trust is an incredible organisation and it is a privilege to work with them! It all started because parents demanded answers and research to prevent these terrible deaths from happening. I love that parents and families are still so involved in the Lullaby Trust’s work, and are still guiding us in research, too. I think the befriending service and the CONI programme that bring so much comfort and support to families who have gone through this unimaginably awful event is huge. I’m so glad to be involved with keeping advice evidence-based and making sure that families have access to it in ways that work for them.