A link between poverty and sudden infant death has been found by researchers at the Children's Hospital, Temple Street, University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin, writes Padraig O'Morain.
The researchers also found a high level of smoking among parents of babies who died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
The team, led by Dr Tom Matthews at Temple Street, examined all cases of sudden infant death from 1993 to 1997. Their findings are reported in the Irish Medical Journal.
One of the risk factors is placing babies face down to sleep.
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Nearly three-quarters (73 per cent) of the mothers of these children smoked.