DEVOTED mum Mandy Ryan has criticised the latest cot death news as scare-mongering.

A recent survey by the Scottish Cot Death Trust, into 201 victims and 276 healthy infants, revealed that babies who sleep on hand-me-down mattresses may face a higher risk of cot death.

But Mandy, who lost her first child Connor to cot death in 1993, believes the latest advice could cause more confusion.

Mandy and husband Dave now have a daughter Shannon but since Connor's death the couple, of Margaret Street, Oswaldtwistle, have raised more than £15,000 for the cot death charity CONI (Care Of Next Infant).

Mandy said: "No doubt this latest information will cause more confusion.

"I don't think there'll ever be answers to why children are victims of cot death. There are so many possibilities and so many differences in how it happens to each individual child, I believe that there is no one solution to the problem."

She added: "Much of the advice which has been released over the past few years has been conflicting and parents are very unsure of what to do for the best. It's a difficult situation."

Cot death charity, the Foundation for the Study of Infant Death (FISD), is urging parents not to panic over the survey, which showed that victims were two-and-a-half times more likely to have had a cloth covered mattress used by an older sibling - possibly not cleaned sufficiently to extinguish any germs absorbed by it.

Joyce Epstein, the FISD's secretary general, said: "It is obvious that clean mattresses are preferable to dirty ones. Parents who place their baby on a clean mattress need not rush out to buy a new one.

"The important messages to remember are: sleep babies on their backs, don't smoke around them, ensure they don't overheat, lay them in the feet-to-foot position and seek medical advice if you are worried about their health."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.