Cot backed by Jools Oliver is time bomb, warns mother whose baby choked to death
A MOTHER told yesterday how she found her seven-week- old daughter dead in a celebrity-endorsed cot which she branded a ‘time bomb’.
Esther Roseman, 39, sobbed as she described to an inquest how newborn Grace was purple in the face with her head hanging over the side of the crib.
She said she screamed to her husband: ‘Grace is dead.’
The baby was taken to hospital where doctors battled in vain to revive her.
The cot involved was a Bednest. It can be attached to the parents’ bed and has retractable sides that can be pulled down or kept halfway up as in Grace’s case.
Somehow the baby managed to get her head over the edge. Because she was so young, she did not have the strength to lift herself off. Her air supply was restricted and she choked to death.
After Grace’s death in April last year, coroner Penelope Schofield issued a Regulation 28 form about the cot,
‘What they have been through is horrific’
designed to prevent further deaths. The Bednest, used by parents across the UK, is still available online for £199, however. In the past it has been recommended by high-profile figures including celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s wife Jools and soap star Tamzin Outhwaite.
Mrs Roseman, from Haywards Heath, West Sussex, told the inquest she was given the second-hand Bednest by a friend. There were no instructions, no warnings on the crib and a manual was not available online. She said she saw images of the cot, once promoted by the National Childbirth Trust, with the sides half down, which led her to believe it was safe to use that way.
Instructions referred to at the inquest state that a parent should not leave a child in the Bednest unsupervised if the side is half down.
Mrs Roseman said: ‘I didn’t have those instructions... I didn’t see any risk. If I had known for one moment, in the room or out of the room, she was capable of what she did, there’s no way I would have slept with that side half down.
‘Every day since it happened I’ve wondered why I didn’t see how unsafe it was. I comfort myself a bit to think that it’s clear that the whole of NCT and the whole of Bednest didn’t see it either. I suppose as Gracie developed, it was just becoming a time bomb.’
On the day of the tragedy she had been due to take her daughter out with a friend but the plan was cancelled. Her barrister husband Gideon was ill in bed with a bug.
After checking on Grace at around 8.30am, Mrs Roseman returned 90 minutes later to find her daughter lifeless with a mark on her neck. She screamed as she called 999. Mr Roseman said: ‘I saw Esther holding Grace and obviously she was gone.’ Asked if he ever had reservations about the crib, he said: ‘There were no reasons. It’s just an innocuous object. It’s a cot.’ Peter Norman, company secretary of Bednest, told the inquest he was ‘ completely shocked’ to hear of Grace’s case, adding: ‘It did not seem feasible a baby would do that.’
Asked if the firm was doing all it could to ensure the product’s safety, he said: ‘That’s exactly what we’ve striven to do and strive to do.’
Henry Witcomb QC, for the family, referred to a report by West Sussex Trading Standards which labelled the Bednest a ‘dangerous product’.
Mr Witcomb said: ‘You do not accept the finding?’ Mr Norman replied: ‘ We have problems with that report.’
Asked if he accepted that the Bednest could be a ‘potentially lethal risk’, Mr Norman said an NCT investigation had found there was a ‘small but plausible risk’, but there had been ‘conflicting’ expert evidence.
After the hearing, the family’s solicitor, Jill Greenfield, a partner at Field-fisher said: ‘What the family have been through already is horrific.
‘To have to give evidence in court like this is compounding their immense distress.’
The inquest, at Horsham, West Sussex, continues.