The number of cot deaths has fallen in recent years
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If there is one issue that many parents disagree on, it has to be about the letting their children use dummies.
But now new research suggests that giving your baby a dummies while they're asleep cuts the risk of cot death.
The American study, published in the British Medical Journal, found that dummies cut the chances of sudden infant death syndrome by ninety per cent.
Breakfast had more on this throughout Friday's programme, our reporter Paul Welsh was live in Stoke Mandeville in Buckinghamshire
Also, in the studio was Joyce Epstein, Director of the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths
There are around 300 cot deaths in the UK every year although the number has fallen since the early 1990s.
The research in California suggests that using a dummy could reduce the risk of a cot death from One in 20,000 to One in 2000.
No single factor is thought to be directly linked to cot death.
There are several things that are recommended to reduce the risk. The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths (FSID) says that parents should:
Avoid exposing their child to smoke
Put the baby to sleep on its back
Keep it cool with the head uncovered.
Babies should not be allowed to sleep in their parents' bed but in a cot in the same room, at least during the first six months.
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BBC NEWS:VIDEO AND AUDIO
Reducing the risk of cot death
How your child's dummy might help
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