COT DEATH

[nannyoakley]

I'd be interested knowing what anyone thinks about cot death being in the news so much and what your thoughts are on cot death. Most parents are left confused by what to do and we hear from people all the time wanting to know what is going on - why there are so many cot death parents being released from prison, why they were ever in prison in the beginning. The main gist of our campaign is to make sure our news about mattress wrapping for cot death prevention reaches the public, and give parents an informed choice, we believe it should be the parents who decide what they want to do - and believe me, we hear from people every day wanting to know about the Cot Life campaign.

Please ask questions / tell me what you think about what you are hearing in the news and reading on the internet, your thoughts are valuable to me and I think this is a serious issue that needs public debate.

Hope you can help.
Many thanks
Julee

I agree people shouldn't be called Trolls if they're not

NannyOakley isn't being called a troll though, she is being called a salesperson with no morals

totally different IMO

Sorry Marina- I see that perhaps she wasn't posting in the best intentions. And okay I think people were right to post the links. I'll leave it now. I wasn't looking for a fight, there's been enough that on MN.... and thats what I'm sick of.
I felt that perhaps a balance of opinions here was better than just the slating. It gives a better impression for new posters. I really wasn't sticking up for Nannyoakleys cause.... just the right to post unpopular opinons.... thats all.

I know Twiglett, I was kind using that as an example of certain times where I've seen people jump on the bandwagon and perhaps end up being wrong. Just trying to illustrate that being hasty sometimes isn't good. Perhaps the wrong place to post as it was more a general observation than specific to this particular thread.

OK, I'm at work so I can't post properly until this afternoon, but one of the references cited on the cotlife website is a Lancet paper under the heading "Research which confirms and supports the toxic gas theory for cot death"

Here is the abstract, note the sentence that starts with a highlighted word in particular:

"Microbial generation of toxic gases from antimony, arsenic, or phosphorus in compounds used as fire retardants in cot mattresses has been proposed as a cause of sudden infant death. To test this hypothesis, 23 polyvinyl chloride mattress samples from cot death cases were incubated on malt agar plates until good microbial growth was obtained. Silver nitrate and mercuric chloride test papers were then inserted and the colour reactions recorded. The predominant organism, recovered from all mattresses tested, was not, as claimed in earlier work, the fungus Scopulariopsis brevicaulis, but a mix of common environmental Bacillus spp. Test paper colour changes occurred whenever bacterial growth was present, but these reactions also occurred in control tests in which no mattress material was present on the plates. Chemical and instrumental analyses of exposed test papers showed that the colour reactions were not due to deposits of antimony, arsenic, or phosphorus. Our findings do not support the hypothesis that toxic gases derived from antimony, arsenic, or phosphorus are a cause of sudden infant death. More sulphur was found in test papers exposed in plates containing bacterial growth than in those without such growth. This result suggests that the test paper reactions were due to the generation of sulphur-containing compounds during bacterial growth on the agar medium."

These people are charlatans, and they spread dangerous misinformation about other risks. They can not be allowed to post and remain unchallenged however distasteful people may find it.

Nannyoakley is not a MNer, she's a spammer. She is using threads to advertise her mattress wrapping, not to offer support and advice. Did she ever post this on a small business ad and pay the £25 fee?

If you had to monitor an NCT email address, you'd be pretty p*ssed off with her by now too.

I agree with you Toothache re the right to post sincerely held but "unpopular" opinions but NannyOakley is a bit of an upsetting one-off.
Is it still baltic in your portakabin? (LOVE that description). Maybe you need a nice mug of Bovril to warm you up {wink]

Tamum, thanks for that research. I don't think you could have a clearer demonstration as to why the website doesn't include hyperlinks to the research, eh? Because they are lying about it. Blatantly lying about it. Why? Because they want to scare new parents into spending money on their product. That has to be unethical doesn't it? Aren't you glad MN has members like Tamum who take the time and trouble to show this? I am.

I stand corrected folks!!

Marina - opposite today... totally sweltering! Perhaps that's why I'm a bit tetchy.

Cant' bellieve this thread - people are calling here a NEW poster - when infact she's used the same 'introcution' on here before, and 100's (possibly 1000's) of other sites!

Thanks Tamum for looking that up and posting it here.

Thank you aloha, that's really nice of you

I have trawled through Pubmed, and I can't see a single instance of a paper that supports the toxic gas theory. They all shoot it down in flames. There is one study that suggests that using second hand mattresses from a different home could be a risk factor, but there are about 3 or 4 follow-up letters criticising the methods used in this study. I have also checked several more references on the Cotlife website that are cited in support of its claims, and without exception they argue against the hypothesis that toxic gases cause cot death. How anyone can use published papers in this way is beyond me; it's verging on the criminal.

I can see that I have come to the wrong place for a serious debate. Most people's opinions on here don't make any sense, it's just a sad tirade of jibes and silly remarks.

You clearly don't have your facts right and have not bothered to read the research I posted - after you requested it - because some moments after I posted the information you attacked me again.

You know nothing about me and you tell lies about me and say I am making money from cot death and that I am using my poor dead son to do so. That is so untrue - if only you knew.

I did email every member of the NCT - Sorry I thought they were the National Childbirth Trust and cared about babies - I wrongly assumed they would help the campaign against cot death - or at least take an interest.

I DO NOT / HAVE NOT / WOULD NOT MAKE MONEY FROM COT DEATH. Advertising a product on ebay cost money - there is a listing fee and a final fee after sale and I can tell you it amounts to a few pounds. I make no profits at all! I don't care if you believe this or not - I just wish you'd stop accusing me of making money on cot death - it is a lie.

What i'd like to know is why do you believe 100% that cot mattress wrapping does not work?
There is definite proof from the New Zealand campaign that mattress wrapping is 100% succesful. You have to read all the information to get a better understanding of the situation.

I cannot answer all your questions - as I said I am not a scientist - but there is an email address on the cotlife website for cotlife and you can ask Jim Sprott the questions which I cannot answer. www.cotlife2000.com/

To those of you who want to know why I publicise Cot Mattress Wrapping, but not about my son - this is because I don't want to keep talking about my baby son - it hurts to much - even after all these years - I am trying to get a life saving message across - it's not about my son - what would you have me do?

I went to bed because the conversation was going nowhere and the bombardment of nonsense gave me a headache - I notice some of you continued with the rubish this morning - So - what is the point?

No, that's just the problem. This is the right place for serious debate.

Perhaps you would care to specifically address tamum's claim that she used pubmed to look through cotlife's sources of published papers and found they, ahem, lacked substance ?

Or what about Irishbird's really complex argument - you remember, about any mattress in the UK containing these chemicals being at least 16 years old ?

nanny oakley, please tell me why I need to wrap a UK matress that is less than 16 years old.

Nannyoakley - If you are genuine then I am sorry about all this (still undecided). Unfortunately you seem to have been condemned on here as heartless person exploiting parents who have lost children to SIDS. I hope that isn't true, but the damage appears to have been done on this forum.

But you don't appear to be trying to have a debate Nannyoakley. You are simply stating a point of view and trying to publicise it.
I am truly sorry for your loss but whether things would have been any different had you wrapped your son's mattress in plastic is debatable and something we will sadly never know.
It may be that there have been some positive results in NZ but it does seem from all the evidence here that there is no foundation for believing that there could be any benefit from mattress wrapping in the UK with the manufaturing standards we have in place.
You seem a little like a religious fanatic - because you believe everyone else has to despite the lack of evidence.
If you believe then great, but of others choose not to for valid reasons of their own why can you not respect their opinion, and if you can't then how can you expect them to respect yours?

nannyoakley, I doubt very much you emailed every member of the NCT although you may well have emailed every NCT contact address available to the general public.

I would be interested to hear how you obtained access to all 60,000 members' addresses - the implication is that you have access to those details about NCT members.

Good post sponge!

nanny oakley, please tell me why I need to wrap a UK mattress that is less than 16 years old.

this is the 2nd time in 2 months this woman has spammed on cot wrapping on MN.

MODERATORS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Message withdrawn

nanny oakley, please tell me why I need to wrap a UK mattress that is less than 16 years old.

The reason we say it is best to wrap all mattresses whether new or old is because even though arsenic, phosphorus and antimony were removed from the manufacturing of cot mattresses - other chemicals have been used in their place and unless you get an analytical report from the mattress supplier stating there are no harmful chemicals present - how can you know what chemicals are beeing used? Also the problem with mattresses is that a fungal growth developes and this in itself is not healthy for children. When a cot mattress gets wet by urine or any liquids then it naturally starts to deteriorate and mould grows in the foam.

Dr Sprott can answer your questions better than I can - he is a forensic scientist with years of knowledge on the subject of cot death prevention.