NICOLA Sturgeon has said the Scottish Conservatives should be “deeply ashamed” of trying to scare parents over the safety of the SNP’s baby boxes.
The First Minister attacked the Tories after they said there were “very serious concerns” about the £8m scheme, which has been in operation across Scotland since August.
It followed Dr Peter Blair, chair of the International Society for the Study and Prevention of Perinatal and Infant Death (Ipsid), flagging concerns about the cardboard containers.
It emerged the Scottish Government had cited a British safety standards for the boxes which applied only to furniture, as no standard for cardboard baby boxes yet exists.
New row over safety standard of SNP baby box
The free boxes include a mattress, blankets, thermometers, clothes and books, with the box itself promoted as a “safe sleep space for babies”.
Dr Blair, of Bristol University medical school, said the government “shouldn’t be advocating infants sleep in these boxes unless there isn’t anything else available”.
At First Minister’s Questions, Tory health spokesman Miles Briggs urged Ms Sturgeon to publish all the expert advice it had received about box safety.
Ms Sturgeon replied: “The Tories should be deeply ashamed of themselves for needlessly trying to frighten parents. I saw that, this morning, Miles Briggs tweeted a call for all the safety accreditation documents to be published. That was done months ago.
“The question is: why is he trying to wilfully mislead people about that?”
She said the boxes and their contents were safe, and suggested the Tories disliked the scheme merely because it was an SNP one.
Top medic backs new Baby Box launch
She said: “Is it because we are giving state support to families, when the Tory preference is always to take that away from families?
“Is it because we have not insisted on a rape clause for eligibility for the baby box?
“The baby box is a good thing, and the Tories should stop unfairly criticising it.”
Launching the SNP’s Holyrood election manifesto in April 2016, Ms Sturgeon claimed baby boxes had reduced infant mortality in Finland, where they were introduced in 1949.
She said: “This simple but powerful idea originated in Finland. It provides practical help for parents and has reduced infant mortality and improved child health.”
Parents snub the box part of SNP's baby box
However Kela, the Finnish government organisation, behind the boxes disputed this.
It said the boxes were merely one factor in a changing health care system, and there was no evidence they reduced infant mortality.
“We have never claimed that the boxes have helped to reduce cot deaths. We don’t want to promote the idea that there is evidence the baby box as such has decreased infant mortality in Finland or that Finland has made such claims,” it said.
Asked about the contradiction by the Guardian, Mr Sturgeon’s official spokesman said later: “This is ludicrous. This is absolutely ludicrous. And feel free to write that down, because you’re being utterly ludicrous. "The baby box is a very very helpful progressive measure. The criticism being levelled here is utterly, utterly ludicrous.”
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