Health and medicine
Baby sleeping position and cot death
Change documented
Earlier front-sleeping advice documented by minister; national back-sleeping advice followed.
Fact-check
Earlier front-sleeping advice acknowledged in Hansard; Back to Sleep campaign and subsequent guidance documented.
The evidence
Links go to the original records: Hansard, legislation, official guidance and news reports. A before-and-after pair is not always proof of a direct contradiction, so read the originals for exact wording.
Before: the earlier position
- Virginia Bottomley confirms previous front-sleeping guidance, 6 Nov 1991 (opens in new tab)
Hansard — Retrospective evidence of prior advice
After: what changed
What the source documents claim
These are summaries from the original documents behind this archive. They have not been checked word for word. Where they differ from the fact-check above, the fact-check is the more reliable account.
Infant Sleeping Positions & Cot Death (Pre-1991)
Document A, case 04
- Original advice
- Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Department of Health leaflets and NHS health visitors instructed parents to place babies to sleep on their fronts (prone position) to prevent choking.
- How it was framed
- Official NHS maternity literature ('The Pregnancy Book') and paediatric advisory panels presented front-sleeping as established clinical best practice based on prevailing hospital airway management consensus.
- Later change
- In December 1991, following epidemiological studies in Avon and New Zealand linking front-sleeping to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), Chief Medical Officer Sir Kenneth Calman launched the 'Back to Sleep' campaign, reversing the advice overnight.
Register entry 04. Last reviewed: 12 November 2026.