Editor,—The term ‘apparent life threatening event’ (ALTE) replaces the older term ‘near miss cot death’ and is used to describe an event perceived by the child’s caregiver to be life threatening. The features showed usually involve a combination of a change in colour, tone, and respiratory pattern and may be difficult to differentiate from physiological events during sleep.1

Of the 15 babies referred to our hospital for investigation of ALTE in …