Sprott refuses to join study on wrapping mattresses

By FRANCESCA MOLD health reporter

Researchers believe that a proposed year-long national study could answer the controversial question of whether wrapping mattresses in plastic reduces the risk of cot death.

But wrapping advocate Dr Jim Sprott says up to 80 babies could die in that time, and he has refused to take part because the researchers have declined to advise parents to wrap mattresses in the meantime.

In a Medical Journal report, researchers revealed the results of an Auckland pilot study aimed at assessing the prevalence of plastic-wrapped cot mattresses and determining their thickness.

It found that one mother used plastic as thin as 0.04mm, which researchers believed was dangerous.

The publication of the study coincided with a coroner's inquest into the death of 5-month-old Olivia Friend, who police believe accidentally suffocated on March 9 on thin plastic storage wrapper enclosing her mattress.

Dr Sprott, a forensic scientist, gave evidence at the inquest before Wellington coroner Garry Evans last week, saying the assessment of suffocation risk had to take into account the type of plastic, its stiffness and thickness.

Dr Sprott believes poisonous gases from mattresses cause cot death and he recommends that parents wrap them in thick, clear polythene sheeting, covered with an underblanket and bed sheets.

But other medical experts, including Plunket, disagree with Dr Sprott's toxic gas theory and say that instead of wrapping mattresses, parents should ensure that their babies sleep on their backs, live in a smokefree environment and are breastfed if possible.

After the Wellington inquest, Dr Sprott said Olivia's parents had been let down by the Ministry of Health because it refused to publicise mattress-wrapping instructions.

He said parents of babies who had died from cot death could take legal class action against the ministry for failing to advise them about safe mattress wrapping.

Ministry child health chief adviser Dr Patrick Tuohy said the case of Olivia Friend showed that even covering the plastic with a cotton sheet did not work if the baby pulled it aside.

Although the ministry did not support mattress wrapping, Dr Tuohy said, parents who chose to adopt the practice should use a heavy grade of clean plastic, firmly tucked under and covered with two layers of bedding.

The ministry also recommended that manufacturers' thin plastic packaging and mattress wraps should carry warning labels.

The Auckland study, which is considered of limited value because women were not randomly selected and were from "more advantaged" central suburbs, found that 23 of 99 mothers wrapped mattresses.

About 16 mothers used BabeSafe covers, which are about 0.15mm thick and recommended by Dr Sprott.

The researchers said that based on the notion that plastic wrapping would reduce cot deaths by two-thirds, a study with 78 cases and 312 controls would have 80 per cent power to identify such a reduction.

This could be achieved by a one-year national study.

Dr Sprott told the Herald yesterday that Auckland University paediatric researcher Dr Ed Mitchell had asked him to cooperate with the study, but he said he would not.

"How can they go on another year to carry out this research in the knowledge 60 to 80 babies will die when they know wrapping mattresses to my specifications is 100 per cent effective," he said.

Cot death had killed 450 babies in the past 5 1/2 years, "but not one has died when their parents wrapped the mattress according to my specifications."