AIBU complaining about an advert-trigger warning

[hairycatmum]

Trigger warning-this is about risks of cot death.

I really don't want to upset anyone, so please don't read on if you might be upset about discussion of sudden infant death.

There's an advert on at the moment for the British Gas Hive-there is a young man leaning back in an armchair with his baby, and he's turning the lights off and the heating up with a remote control device so the baby will settle.

My day job-I'm a paediatric and perinatal pathologist. As part of my role I investigate sudden and unexpected infant deaths (SIDS, SUDI deaths). It is well known that co-sleeping in an armchair or on the sofa is far more dangerous than co-sleeping in a bed. There is a 50 fold increased risk of sudden death when the parent falls asleep in an armchair. The department of health, the royal college of paediatrics and child health, the American Academy of Pediatrics and numerous other bodies and organisations explicitly warn against co-sleeping in an armchair or on a sofa with a young baby.

Co-sleeping in a bed can be planned and the environment made much safer, but co-sleeping in an armchair is usually unplanned and unintentional. Every year I get a handful of cases in precisely this scenario-parent settles with baby for a moment on the sofa or armchair and falls asleep, its completely accidental and a horrible, devastating accident.

So, I wrote to the Advertising Standards Authority asking them to investigate-IMO the advert shows something that could be potentially dangerous. Their response was that the advert did not imply that the dad was going to sleep there with the baby all night and rejected the complaint. The problem is, it doesn't take the baby to sleep like that with the dad all night, I've had cases where the parent nodded off for 15 minutes and woke up to their wee babe being smothered accidentally.

ASA won't investigate further-in their response they said that there had been some other complainers. I've emailed British Gas directly. I feel really strongly about this, but that's probably because I see the end result, and I would hate for any parent to watch that advert and then settle with their baby like that.

I have to admit to thinking that doesn't seem very safe when I saw the advert. You could got to Twitter and FB as companies tend not to like negative social media publicity.

I tweeted copying in @lullaby. Had response saying comments been forwarded to marketing team. Would suggest others concerned do same thing

It's like the bepanthen as where they're babyproofing the house and put in socket covers.

Thank you hairycatmum. I've just emailed ASA and hive as well to complain as I agree with you entirely!

Thanks for all the responses-initially I thought I was maybe reading too much into it, but you've reassured me that there is a cause for concern. I emailed the CEO directly, but haven't heard back yet.

Yadnbu, I'd be interested to see their response.

OP I agree with you, I don't think YABU esp when you know so much about it. Shouldn't temperature in children's rooms be regulated anyway, so it's not too hot. I remember with last DC the monitors had a temp gauge that told you if the temp was just right or not. Anything over a certain amount was high.

People would be up in arms about a baby in a car. So how is turning your heating up any different?

We always made sure that everything was optimal. Even now they're older we would have it a bit warmer, but DC react to heat so it's a no go.

Please don't feel put off.

YANBU

Update-I got a response from British Gas, from their 'Connected Home' division.

They claim that they planned the advert carefully and took advice from 'experts' (although they declined to provide the names either of individuals or organisations that they consulted). They claim the advert shows a loving father settling his baby to sleep and it is clear that the father has no intention of sleeping, and therefore this is entirely safe and the advert will not be amended.

I responded that no parent plans to fall asleep with their baby in an unsafe position, but it is precisely this unplanned scenario that is the most dangerous, and the fact that the TV remains on does not prevent a tired parent from falling asleep unexpectedly.

Their second response was 'your job is obviously making you biased, we aren't making any changes, get lost'.

Have you - ah, paraphrased that at all? 😄

Paraphrased a little!

Actually, it was 'thank you for your responses, and for reaching out to us. However, with all respect, we do not propose to remove the advertisement and we consider this matter closed'.

'With all respect' always means 'eff off'.