Summary

In both the Service and civilian populations the incidence of unexpected sudden infant death (USID) occurring in Gosport during the 5-year period from 1 January 1977 to 31 December 1981 was considerably higher than in other areas in South-east Hampshire. The results of a retrospective study of 47 of the 49 deaths over this period suggest that potentially avoidable social and child care factors may have contributed to this relatively high incidence. An analysis of risk factors suggests that a scoring system similar to the ‘Sheffield’ system with additional information on weight gain collected by health visitors would be useful in identifying babies at high risk of USID in Gosport in the future. There appear to be no significant differences either in incidence or predicted risk of USID between the civilian and Service population overall (the latter comprising almost entirely families from the Royal Navy).