The Department of Health is backing the recommendation in a joint guidewith the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths (FSID).
Dr Richard Wilson, FSID trustee and an honorary consultant paediatricianin Kingston, London, said, 'We don't know why this works, but we havefairly good evidence that it does.' He added that the finding was 'asurprise'.
The advice follows the work of a research group set up by the AmericanAcademy of Pediatrics, which combined the results of internationalstudies on cot death and concluded that overall, the incidence of SuddenInfant Death Syndrome (SIDS) was halved by dummy use.
The studies found that children settled to sleep with a dummy - even fora nap during the day - are less likely to die from SIDS.
Although they were not able to comment on the medical findings, the Talkto Your Baby Campaign at the National Literacy Trust urged caution overthe use of dummies.
Liz Attenborough, manager of Talk to Your Baby, said, 'During the daybabies need to be dummy-free.'
She added, 'Dummies should definitely be gone by 12 months, - that's thestandard advice from speech and language therapists. Babies from theearliest age use their lips, tongue and mouth to practise verbalisingand they need masses of dummy-free time.'
But Dr Wilson said, 'What we're talking about is giving babies a dummywhen they are settling to sleep, not all the time. The advice recommendsintroducing a dummy as soon as breastfeeding is established.'
Dr Wilson added that the risk of cot death declines after the age of sixmonths and that there would be no benefit in using a dummy after ayear.
The report, Reducing the Risk of Cot Death, can be downloaded atwww.fsid.org.uk.
