'My little boy was a stiff, cold statue': Anne Diamond opens up about her baby son's devastating cot death in an emotional video

  • TV presenter Anne Diamond has opened up about her son's cot death
  • He died 25 years ago as a result of sudden infant death syndrome [SIDS]
  • She has released a video in which she speaks candidly about the tragedy 
  • She fronts the Back to Sleep campaign to raise awareness of SIDS

Presenter Anne Diamond recalls the moment she found her baby boy had died in his cot in an emotional video.

The 62-year-old, whose son Sebastian suffered sudden infant death syndrome aged four-and-a-half months in 1991, describes screaming when she found her little boy 'was a stiff, cold statue of a child' in the clip uploaded to Youtube, 25 years on from the tragedy.

Within seconds of the video starting Anne's voice cracks, a glimpse of the sorrow she still carries with her years after living through 'every mother's worst nightmare'.

Anne Diamond, pictured above, has posted a video to YouTube to mark the 25th anniversary of her losing her son to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)

Anne says of entering Sebastian's room that morning: 'My little boy was a stiff cold statue of a child instead of the warm, cuddly, milky baby that I'd put to bed the night before.

'And I just screamed. I was just rocking my very, very little cold baby and it was actually painful to hold him because he was just so cold.' 

It was Anne's eldest son, Oliver's, fourth birthday that day, July 12th. 

She remembers at one point, he turned around quietly and asked: 'Can I open any of my presents now?' 

In the video, she talks about the moment she went upstairs to check on her son Sebastian (pictured) and what happened when she realised he had died in the night

The TV presenter's devastating loss in 1991 became the focus of a national campaign, called Back to Sleep, to help prevent cot deaths like Sebastian's - a campaign that experts have credited with saving thousands of lives.  

She talks in the video about how New Zealand had the highest cot death rate in the world time, and that nobody knew why.

She says they later found was that it was happening to babies who were lying on their tummies, and that they'd been campaigning against cot death and succeeding in saving lives in New Zealand for six months before Sebastian's death. 

After her young son's death, Anne began campaigning and her commitment to the cause is said to have saved lots of other children's lives

A picture above shows Sebastian's father Mike Hollingsworth feeding him

She also says, describing it as 'one of the greatest health scandals ever', that Britain was aware of the life-saving advice having an impact in New Zealand.

But, she says: 'Britain agreed to be a control.

'We knowingly did nothing so that they could compare their data with ours.' 

At around the time of Sebastian's death, Britain was losing 2,500 babies to cot death every single year which equates to 5 or 6 every single day, Anne says.

Anne Diamond, pictured above from 2014, says there is a simple way of preventing a lot of SIDS cases: by making sure the baby is put to sleep on its back rather than its front

She says: 'At times, I'm strong enough to be philosophical and shrug my shoulders and tell myself not to look back with revenge or bitterness. At other times I miss Sebastian so much I want to throttle any sign of the complacency which allowed him to die'

She still fronts the Back to Sleep campaign and works to raise awareness among parents about how to position their babies when they put them down at night.   

The video ends with her reading from her book A Gift from Sebastian, saying: 'At times, I'm strong enough to be philosophical and shrug my shoulders and tell myself not to look back with revenge or bitterness.

'At other times I miss Sebastian so much I want to throttle any sign of the complacency which allowed him to die.'

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