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Parents, healthcare professionals and policy makers across the globe have benefited from Professor Ian St James-Roberts's research and writing on understanding infant sleep and crying. His findings over 20 years underpin government and third-sector guidance for health staff in the UK, US, Canada and Australia. His research has also informed — and eased the minds of — countless parents in these and many other countries. It features in the practical advice provided by the National Childbirth Trust (NCT), the UK's biggest parenting charity, and is cited on many other authoritative websites for parents around the world.
University of Bristol research has led to a marked and persisting reduction in the number of cot deaths (sudden infant death syndrome or SIDS). The dramatic 67% fall from 1988 to 1992 in England and Wales resulted from the identification of risks associated with putting babies to sleep face-down (prone). Nationally, death rates have more than halved again (54% fall) between from 1992 and 2011, with an estimated additional 1025 lives saved between 2008 and 2011, after two studies conducted in 1993-6 and 2003-6 identified further contributory risk factors. Tens of thousands of SIDS deaths worldwide have been prevented thanks to the team's research, international collaboration and development of risk-reduction recommendations.