The UK’s leading baby-safety charity and a Liberal Democrat MP have written to the health secretary calling for urgent action to regulate the infant-sleep industry after an undercover report found new parents were being given advice that went against long-established safer sleep guidance.
The Lullaby Trust and Tom Morrison urged Wes Streeting to make sure no more babies’ lives are put at risk by unregulated and bogus sleep advice. The call followed a investigation that used secret filming to expose two prominent figures in the infant-sleep sector giving advice that medical professionals said could put babies at risk of serious harm and even death.
Streeting said dangerous misinformation dressed up as expert advice must stop, and told parents to rely only on trusted, evidence-based information such as the NHS Best Start in Life website. His response came as the debate over baby sleep advice moved from concern to pressure for action, with campaigners arguing that the current system allows people with no formal oversight to sell guidance to vulnerable families.
That gap matters because anyone can call themselves a baby-sleep expert or consultant regardless of experience or qualifications, and there is currently no oversight or regulation of the sector. Campaigners say that leaves parents exposed to advice that can increase the risk of harm, including Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, without consequence. The report added urgency by showing how easily unsafe guidance can be presented as professional help.
The push for tougher rules also lands against a separate government move already announced in March, when the Department for Health and Social Care said the law would be changed to limit who is allowed to call themselves a nurse. Under that planned change, people working hands-on as night nannies would no longer be able to operate as maternity nurses, a distinction that has become painfully important after an inquest into the death of football manager Steve Bruce’s four-month-old grandson. That inquest found Madison Bruce Smith died after being placed to sleep on her front by someone calling themselves a maternity nurse.
The Bruce Smith family said no parent should ever have to question whether the person they have trusted to care for their baby is truly qualified, and said clear standards and accountability are essential. They want all paid care for babies and infants to be properly regulated, with mandatory training and strict adherence to national safer-sleep guidelines. Their warning turns the policy argument into something more immediate: when advice is sold as expertise, families may not know whether they are being helped or put in danger.
Morrison said he must ask what more can be done to legislate to prevent life-threatening advice being given to parents when they are searching for help in the vulnerable and difficult beginnings of parenthood. The Lullaby Trust and the MP said government regulation is urgently needed to stop individuals from giving parents sleep advice that is contrary to established NHS and real expert guidance. For Streeting, the next step is no longer just about public warnings. It is about whether the law can catch up with an industry that, for now, answers to almost no one.
