cot death
1
6.5
- noun
- /kɑt dɛθ/
- Archaic
:
muerte súbita del lactante
- Epstein adds that "there are few areas in child protection and child deaths which are so preventable as cot death and therefore is the one area where professionals can really make a difference."
Examples
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"Babies die of 'I don't know' all the time, but we call it SIDS, or cot-death in the U.K.
Blog text (19) -
It was a cot death.
-
In Enfield, they did their own analysis of nine cot deaths which occurred within one year (2008-9) and found the tragedies cut across society.
Academic text (2010) -
The incidence of cot deaths in NZ was successfully reduced by convincing parents that it was a bad idea to have the infant sleeping in the same bed as you if you had spent the night drinking.
Blog text (19) -
The decline in cot death since the back-to-sleep campaign has controversially highlighted the fact that within a subgroup of sudden infant death cases, there is a link with child abuse.
Academic text (2011) -
The tragic news of her baby's cot death left the entire family in shock and grief.
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Health officials have launched a campaign to raise awareness about cot death and its prevention.
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Parents are advised to always place their babies on their backs to reduce the risk of cot death.
Synonyms
8
6.7
Sudden unexplained death of a healthy baby, usually during sleep
5
5.7
A baby who seemed healthy dies suddenly, often during sleep
3
7.4
A sudden unexpected death of a healthy baby while sleeping
2
3.7
The sudden death of a baby under one year while sleeping, with no known cause
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound 'cot death' is a literal composition of 'cot' (an infant's bed) + 'death' and thus directly refers to the death of a baby in a cot. A B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer this basic meaning (even if they might not know the clinical label SIDS or the nuance of suddenness), so the expression is transparently compositional.
Etymology
Cot death comes from the image of a baby dying in a cot, the British word for 'baby's bed'. Because these deaths happened suddenly while the baby slept, the phrase came to mean the sudden, unexpected death of a healthy baby.