The sky above Dundee city centre was filled with pink and blue balloons to commemorate babies lost to cot death over the past 25 years.
The balloon launch on Saturday, held at St Andrews Church in King Street, was one of a series being held in towns and cities by the Scottish Cot Death Trust.
It was founded in 1985 and has provided advice and support to grieving families while funding research projects totalling £3 million into the syndrome, which claims the life of a child in Scotland every nine days on average.
Lynne Mackenzie, a community fund-raiser with the trust, said, “Losing a child is an unbearable thing and losing a baby so suddenly and unexpectedly is something that a family never gets over.
“The balloon release has been organised to make sure that the life of each of these babies is remembered and to remind the public that the trust urgently needs money to fund research to save lives in the future. We also provide advice to parents on how to reduce the risks of cot death, so that other families may be spared the grief that many have experienced.”
More than 1500 babies have been lost to cot death in the past 25 years and it is the biggest cause of death in infants aged between one week and one year.
The vast majority of cases happen to babies aged up to six months, with boys twice as likely to be affected as girls. Cot death usually happens without any warning signs, with most babies dying in their sleep having shown no previous symptoms or signs of distress. The cause is unknown, although it is thought environmental factors, infection and possibly inherited genetic conditions may all have some part to play.
Smoking during pregnancy or after birth increases the risk, so the trust recommends parents keep their home smoke-free. Putting a baby to sleep on its back and not letting it get too warm are also ways of minimising the risk.
Image used under Creative Commons licence courtesy of Flickr user D Sharon Pruitt.