Tots wanted for university experiment

Babies on Teesside are being offered an early experience of reality TV but it's not exactly 'Big Brother.' Although, like the Channel 4 programme, the camera will be on the babies while they sleep, this is for a much more worthy cause than selling your 'story' to a Sunday newspaper.

Durham University are seeking babies for research into Sudden Infant Death Syndrome - or cot death. Recent research shows that infant dummy use may protect against the syndrome and the University wants to find out more.

Researchers from the Queen's Campus in Stockton-on-Tees are looking for twenty families in the Middlesbrough and Stockton areas to take part. The babies must all be under four months old and must not be dummy users.

The babies will be videoed while asleep, either at their home or at the university's parent-infant sleep laboratory. All the footage will be coded to ensure anonymity - not something any Big Brother wannabe would welcome - and will only be seen by the research team, who are all students on Durham's Human Sciences (Anthropology) BSc programme.

Researchers say they don't yet understand the protective mechanisms that dummies trigger when babies are sleeping and they want to explore whether there is a relationship between dummy use and infant sleep behaviour.

And in a final radical departure from accepted TV practice, no one will be paid for taking part although there will be 'thank you' gift packages for the parents and babies involved.

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