Surely they’d be bonkers experts, though? They’d be going against NHS and WHO guidance for neonates and young infants to argue long exposure to cold is not a fatality risk or, really, that an adult who was very cold themselves could adequately regulate the body temperature of a neonate or infant.
Equally, CM wasn’t co-sleeping. She was (according to her) accidentally falling asleep holding the baby or sleeping in a tent with a very young baby in an adult sleeping bag between two adults - one of whom was so exhausted she was prone to falling asleep sitting up with no back support or otherwise, and the other who was an equally tired and apparently quite unwell man with health problems who was even more unlikely to sleep lightly. This type of sleeping with a baby is often misrepresented as co-sleeping and is often associated with deaths, so it’s difficult to see how they could disagree with that. It’s not purely this, but the multiple factors - exhaustion, dangerous adult position, no safe mattress, next to two adults (not just breastfeeding mother), extreme cold yet lots of loose warm material and potential of adults wearing sofa stuffing beside baby while sleeping, unconfirmed if baby ever put to sleep on back, unconfirmed if smokers, unconfirmed if adults had drunk alcohol, unconfirmed if low birth weight etc. Lots of mums fall asleep for a moment in a chair while breastfeeding. They tend to be in a suitably heated house with a well-fed, appropriately dressed baby who has had medical assessments at birth. It’s still a risk, but obviously a lesser one due to lesser complexity. (This is often why safe co-sleeping is recommended, though, and less so breastfeeding chairs for night time.) The most complex situations where co-sleeping rules aren’t safely followed tend to be the most risky.
I’m really struggling to see how any medical expert can persuade me against the reasons that medical guidance is put in place - it’s essentially a catalyst of risks. They may well confirm no medical expert can tell how Victoria died, but to me, all they’re confirming is that the parents who wished for a post mortem let Victoria decompose to a point where that was impossible - all JMOO, of course.
At this point, it wouldn’t surprise me if they came in to testify that soil really does preserve a body. I don’t envy the jury. I hope they’ve heard far more than has been reported to us.
