The Procurator Fiscal will instruct a Paediatric Pathologist to carry out a post mortem examination on your baby/child’s body to try to find a cause of death and again this is a legal requirement.

The first results from this examination will be available within a few days and after this your baby/child’s funeral can normally take place.  However, these early results are not able to give all the detail that can help to tell if your baby/child had a rare disease or if there was anything unusual that might help to explain why your baby or child has died suddenly and unexpectedly.

During the post-mortem examination samples of tissue and blood will be taken for further tests, to try and explain your baby/child’s death. The samples will be kept as a permanent part of your baby/child’s medical record.

The results of these further tests should be available within 2-3 months. When the results of tests on these samples are available a cause of death may be revealed in a small number of cases. In others, a possible contributory factor to death may have been established although this does not adequately explain the death. In the majority of cases, there is no explanation at all for the death.

If you feel able to make the special gift of allowing part of these samples to be used for research into sudden infant death, you can give your permission for this. Everyone involved with you is trying to help understand why your baby/child died and how further infant deaths can be prevented.

Following the post mortem examination the Pathologist will issue a death certificate which will either give a definite cause of death (if one has been identified) or a diagnosis such as “sudden unexpected death in infancy” or “unascertained”.