I went undercover to expose dangerous baby-sleep advice — BBC News

[0:00] if you're a first-time parent you know this feeling it's 3am you haven't slept properly [0:05] in weeks you're running on fumes we were pretty broken so you pick up your phone and you scroll [0:13] social media parenting forums looking for someone anyone who has the answer let's actually look is [0:18] the baby feeding well and that's exactly when you find them the self-described sleep experts [0:24] the sleep fairies the baby whisperers we can swaddle the arms which helps baby feel very safe [0:31] and secure they've got thousands of followers they promise you sleep they promise your baby [0:37] will be transformed what i do works what i say works but what if that promise came with something [0:43] you never signed up for i can't tell you to do this but every baby i work with sleeps on its front [0:49] you cannot be doing this you're a danger to infants i didn't expect the level of advice [0:57] to be as dangerous as it was if you put like a rolled up towel either side of her waist [1:04] so it's low down like under her arms wow having those extra things in the cot is a risk factor [1:13] so we decided to go undercover to expose some of the bad even dangerous advice that families say [1:19] they have been given by some self-described baby sleep experts or consultants our investigation [1:28] started with parents telling us about their experiences new mum emily was one of them when [1:34] her son turned four months she says his sleep became a massive challenge it got to a point where [1:40] we were on like hourly wake-ups and as first-time parents we just needed help sleep deprived and pretty [1:48] desperate emily did what so many parents do she went online and one name kept coming up again and [1:55] again my feeds were just sort of full of her references to her it looked like she had lots of [2:02] followers a lot of my friends i could see were following her on social media alison scottwright the [2:09] self-described magic sleep fairy she claims to be an infant reflux and sleep expert she's got nearly 40 000 [2:16] followers she's written baby sleep books worked with celebrities and even been on tv sharing her baby [2:23] sleep secrets as i say sleep breathe sleep i never wake a sleeping baby at night unless there's a medical [2:30] reason to do so emily paid over 500 pounds for a consultation with alison which is a huge amount of [2:36] money but when we were literally on our knees and we thought this could solve everything we thought [2:43] it would be worth it but emily says what happened in the consultation left her shocked she decided to [2:52] diagnose our son with reflux and that's why he wasn't sleeping because he was in constant pain and we [3:02] hadn't recognized this pain and i think that's when i got upset because it felt like she was really [3:13] accusing us of not picking up on this with him emily says alison suggested medication for her son's [3:21] reflux without any mention of speaking to a health professional first then emily says it gets worse [3:27] alison advised her to put her son to sleep in an unsafe position once she'd decided that um my son had [3:36] reflux she just said he needs to be sleeping on his front he needs to move to full weaning and water [3:46] you need to go to the pharmacy and get infant gaviscon you need to be using suppositories [3:53] that advice to sleep a baby on their front goes against nhs guidelines because of robust research that [3:59] shows it increases the risk of sudden and unexplained death and apparently healthy babies in their sleep [4:05] under the age of one that's known as sids used to be called cot death cases have dropped significantly [4:12] since a big public health campaign in the early 1990s advising parents to place your infant to sleep [4:18] on their back we've known for well over 30 35 years now that babies are more likely to die when they're [4:27] placed on their fronts than when they're placed on their backs it is the most consistent finding of all of [4:33] the sids case control studies that have been done worldwide so that's why everybody is given you [4:39] know back to sleep guidance but some people working with babies not following that advice you might [4:45] have read about the recent inquest that found four-month-old madison bruce smith the grandson of [4:50] football manager steve bruce died whilst asleep in his cot having been placed on his front by an [4:56] unregulated maternity nurse that's the same age emily's son was when she says allison gave her that [5:03] unsafe advice i was really really upset really upset i felt quite preyed upon the baby sleep [5:12] industry is booming but it's completely unregulated anyone can call themselves the baby sleep expert or [5:19] consultant there's no checks no oversight and no accountability we've spoken to parents who say [5:26] they have been given safe sleep advice but we've also uncovered a dangerous side of this industry [5:33] dozens of families say they've received dangerous advice from multiple self-described sleep experts [5:40] they include several parents who say they paid for allison's support so we went undercover to see [5:47] exactly what happens in her one-to-one consultations this bbc producer posed as a new mum of a nine-week [5:54] old baby who was waking frequently during the night pretty typical at that age hiya oh hello matilda hi [6:02] how are you we paid four pound fifty a minute for a video consultation it lasted 50 minutes i think i [6:09] thought sleep would be better by now well it should be to be fair it should be the producer described her [6:15] genuine experience with a healthy newborn daughter nearly two years ago but during the 50 minute call [6:21] allison suggested frequent night waking might be caused by a number of underlying issues without ever [6:27] seeing the baby here's a snapshot of some of those issues she's evidently got a tummy problem then i do [6:33] wonder if she's got a cow's milk protein issue it may well be that she has got a tongue tie we don't [6:39] necessarily have to jump to she's got reflux but that there's a big alarm bell there's a big red flag [6:44] there for me i think it would be prudent if you can bear it to remove dairy from your diet nearly 30 [6:51] minutes in there's this i can't tell you to do this but every baby i work with sleeps on its front [6:58] right i'd never do back sleeping i don't agree with it and in a situation like this it could be [7:03] that that's the problem because i'm telling you now the front sleeping is an absolute game changer [7:08] and it's one of the biggest travesties of modern day parenting when everyone says you've got to [7:12] sleep them on their back at the end we probed allison's qualifications i'm writing the you were [7:19] a midwife right you is that originally many years ago but i i mean i don't have my license or my [7:24] nursing practice and all that now i never kept it up and you know honestly what i do now there is no [7:30] qualification that anyone could have for what i do see that's what i think is so concerning about her [7:36] we asked two medical professionals to review that call i don't know how you feel about it and i can't [7:41] tell you to do anything different obviously but every every baby i consult over or go to work with [7:47] hands-on will end up on its front at some point every baby she goes to work with hands-on will seep [7:52] on their front i just find that like but there's no one to regulate her there's no i find it terrifying [8:01] that there is nobody to say to her you cannot be doing this you're a danger to infants i think this [8:10] is fundamentally the most dangerous thing that she has said so far makes you feel a bit sick [8:14] it does it it makes me feel sick the back to sleep movement campaign is one of actually the biggest [8:23] successes that we have in pediatric medicine and she keeps reiterating that she can't give this advice [8:28] and yet she is very forcefully saying that actually that is the advice i'm giving you we're not talking [8:35] about mild harm you know on the harm scale here we're not talking about a baby getting a cold we're [8:40] talking about a baby having cot death was there anything that you heard that you thought actually [8:47] that's that's useful information that could help the mother no no i was absolutely shocked actually [8:56] watching this i didn't expect the level of advice to be as dangerous as it was in a statement [9:03] allison did not respond specifically to our questions about front sleeping she said she has [9:08] helped a multitude of babies and families these parents had already sought help from nhs and private [9:14] health professionals but remain concerned about their baby's distress her role is then to support [9:19] them in navigating these challenges alongside not instead of medical advice medical professionals [9:26] have told us the growing baby sleep industry is driven in part by the limited availability of [9:31] postnatal support for new parents allison isn't the only popular baby sleep expert we've heard [9:37] concerns about lisa clegg is another also known as the blissful baby expert she's got nearly 100 000 [9:47] instagram followers hi is that lisa we also did an undercover consultation with lisa it cost 200 pounds [9:58] for a phone call that lasted 50 minutes with a month of follow-up support our producer used the same [10:03] backstory a mum with a nine-week-old who was waking regularly during the night having your white [10:09] noise on and the room dark and using the muslin nhs guidelines say a baby's sleep space should be [10:15] completely clear to reduce the risk of sudden and unexplained death that means no pillows towels [10:21] bumpers or anything that holds a baby in one sleeping position but lisa suggested otherwise depending on [10:27] how big the crib is if you put like a rolled up towel either side of her waist so it's low down like [10:34] under her arms that again like squishes her like almost makes her feel like she's still squished in [10:40] your arm then 40 minutes into the call lisa brings up the towels again another way of kind of keeping her [10:47] squished in is if you use the rolled up towels by her waist that kind of keeps her in position as well so [10:52] she can't roll although she acknowledges that it needs to be she says below the level of the arms [11:00] having those extra things in the cot in itself yeah is a risk factor do you have any um any like [11:07] photos of what that would look like or and also kind of a rough yeah picture of a kind of that would be [11:13] great lisa sent us two photos of young babies asleep in their cot as an example of what other parents had [11:20] done we don't know the identity of the infants in those pictures so we're not going to show you them [11:25] we did share them with our medical professionals wow that's quite shocking because it's not just [11:34] two rolled up muslins under the armpit there's one actually behind the head and the baby's not on [11:41] their back they're on their side that's a really tiny baby as well i would say that's a new that's a [11:46] newborn baby basically and therefore they really have no motor skills at all and the fact that that [11:53] baby's propped on their side yeah could so easily without even needing to actually roll just gravity [12:00] could take that baby onto their front right there were just so many concerning features in this image [12:05] isn't there and that she felt no concern sending this that there was nothing to be called out there's [12:11] actually another image you can see as well i thought the first one was bad wow so that cot's absolutely full [12:21] of things you've got blankets on both sides baby swaddled and then things all round their head i i [12:30] actually couldn't pick out really any safe features here you know that that's not the kind of age of [12:36] baby that is going to be able to get themselves out of that situation the fact that she's advocating [12:43] for people to do this as a professional that people are turning to for her to help them [12:49] just makes me feel really angry that vulnerable parents are being given this advice and being [12:53] put in this situation how are you feeling after hearing and watching what you have today in both [13:00] of these calls there have been moments where if a mother did do exactly as these people have advised [13:06] they would be increasing the risk for their children i think we're both very clear that this is not [13:12] uh one size fits all all our infant sleep advice is dangerous but it is very clear that there is a [13:21] dark place yeah that we've found here that needs to be exposed and that families need to know exists [13:29] absolutely lisa clegg told the bbc she has successfully advised thousands of parents on sleep and says none of [13:35] this advice has ever been dangerous or put babies at risk parents come to her because of lack of support from [13:41] the nhs on the safer sleep guidelines she told us that everyone is free to choose what parts they [13:47] follow or do differently she said rolled up towels are positioned under the armpits and well away from [13:52] the face so no danger of asphyxiation this mp is calling for urgent regulation after the death of [14:00] madison bruce smith the grandson of steve bruce we had this tragic case in my constituency of a four [14:06] month old who died after being put in an unsafe sleeping position by someone describing themselves a [14:12] maternity nurse and i worry that babies are at risk every day that these kind of unsafe practices [14:19] are being followed that's why it's so important that we get the regulation we need and we have proper [14:24] government action to tackle this issue emily did eventually find someone who gave us safe advice [14:30] and reassurance there was nothing wrong with her son and his sleep was normal for his age i have [14:37] a really happy bubbly active interested little boy who is doing what a little one should be doing but [14:51] while the baby sleep industry remains unregulated there's no way for parents like emily to know who they [14:58] they can trust [15:04] you [15:06] you [15:08] you [15:10] you [15:12] you [15:14] you [15:16] you [15:16] you [15:17] you [15:19] you [15:21] you [15:23] you