Mum finds cot death baby lying next to her twin sister
A BABY was found dead next to her twin sister in their cot, an inquest heard.
Ella Jayne Byrom-Whitehead was discovered face down next to her identical twin, Lola, by her mother.
The five-month-old had been suffering from a heavy cold and had learned to roll over shortly before her death.
The coroner said Ella’s position, combined with blocked airways due to her cold, could have caused her to have a cardiac arrest.
Janine Byrom, 33, and her fiance, Kieran Whitehead, 24, told the hearing in Bolton that their daughter had been given Calpol as well as a vapour rub for babies because of her cold.
The twins, who had slept side by side in the same cot since birth, often hold- ing hands, were put to bed as usual by antiques dealer Mr Whitehead, on the evening of October 20 last year.
Miss Byrom, a jewellery designer, discovered Ella was unresponsive at 5am the following morning.
She told the inquest: ‘I found Ella face down in the mattress with her hands near her face. An ambulance took her to hospital and they tried to resuscitate her in A&E but I knew that she was dead already.’
Dr Edmund Cheesman, a paediatric pathologist who carried out a postmortem examination on Ella, said the cause of death was ‘unascertained’.
When pressed by coroner Alan Walsh, Dr Cheesman agreed a combination of Ella rolling over and the restriction of her airways could have led to a cardiac arrest. Mr Walsh, delivering a narrative verdict, said: ‘It could not have been foreseen or expected that she would suffer a cardiac arrest and die.’
He added: ‘Ella had developed at a quicker rate than Lola and was well advanced and very clever in her short life. She was known to be sitting up and rolling over but she had been placed in the same position every night without any problems.
‘What happened was an extremely unusual set of circumstances.’
He told the couple, who have a twoyear-old son, Harry, there was nothing they could have done to prevent Ella’s death. Mr Whitehead, of Heaton, near Bolton, said: ‘We had heard horror stories happening to other people and you think it will never happen to us.’