A baby’s death has led to a review of hospital guidelines about mums and their newborns sharing beds.

A revised ‘no co-sleeping’ policy for mums and babies has now been drawn up since five-day-old Amber Archer was discovered not breathing in bed with her mum at Bradford Royal Infirmary.

When the tragedy happened last December, the hospital trust’s bed sharing/no co-sleeping policy for babies was already due to be reviewed, a Bradford inquest heard yesterday. The new policy which followed the investigation into Amber’s death informs staff what steps should be taken to make sure co-sleeping is avoided.

It is now in full use throughout the trust and available on the trust’s Intranet. Community midwifery staff will also be made aware of it.

The inquest heard how baby Amber’s mum, Candy Archer, and another new mum sharing the same room two nights before the baby died had been reminded by nursing staff about the dangers of breast-feeding in bed and falling asleep.

The inquest then heard how a nurse arriving to carry out a blood test on Amber had pulled back the bed curtains and realised the baby was not in her cot.

Nurse Gillian Newton, who sobbed as she gave evidence, said she had found Amber’s mum asleep on top of her. “I pushed Candy over and dragged Amber out,” she said.

Earlier in the inquest Miss Archer, of Croft Street, Idle, had been adamant she was not on top of the baby and that Amber had been at her side. She told Coroner Roger Whittaker she had known about the dangers of co-sleeping with babies.

A post-mortem exam showed Amber had bronchial pneumonia and a serious bacterial infection which would have made her seriously ill, and there were no obvious signs of asphyxia. But Mr Whittaker said after hearing evidence, including that from the pathologist, in his view: “Amber would not have died if she had not been co-sleeping with her mother. She would have survived the night and treatment could have been afforded for the infection she was suffering from.”

Amber’s father, Jason Murphy, asked BRI clinical-risks manager Julie Wilson why his partner had not been checked on more regularly. He wanted to know why there was not now a policy that all new mums should only breastfeed upright in chairs provided.

The inquest heard even breastfeeding in chairs was not without risks and there was not a regime on monitoring mums like Miss Archer at that stage who were about to be discharged with their babies the next day.

In normal circumstances the pair would have already been at home five days after the birth but they had been kept on the transitional ward because Miss Archer was a recovering heroin user and on methadone.

Recording a verdict of accidental death, Mr Whittaker asked that the hospital’s new no co-sleeping policy with babies be shared further for information with other agencies and organisations field including the National Patients’ Safety Agency. “This was an unnecessary death,” he said.