Mum's grief after she finds baby dead in cot

Lorraine Barlow, 40, said she and her husband have been left ‘devastated’ after attempts to revive three-month-old Lucy failed.

The couple, who live in a flat at Northmount Apartments, Gynn Square, Blackpool, said they are now raising money to give their daughter a ‘good send off.’

Lorraine said: “I just wish she was still here. She had started to hold her toys and she was smiling all the time.

“She was just happy. She had been unsettled but the doctor put it down to colic.”

Lorraine said she asked her husband George, 54, to check on Lucy when the pair woke up on Monday, April 3.

She said: “She was OK and moving her head. He thought she was trying to get comfortable so he left her.

“I got up about half-an-hour later and she looked comfortable. I made her a bottle and went in after doing some washing.

“I said, ‘Come on, Lucy, it’s time for your bottle’. I went to pick her up and she was not moving or breathing – she was grey.

“It was horrible. I just started screaming, ‘No, no, no, no.’

“My husband thought I had hurt myself. When he saw me he asked what was going on.”

She continued: “Straight away I took her to the living room and tried to resuscitate her as George was on the phone to the ambulance service. They tried resuscitation when they came [at around noon] and in the ambulance, but she was just not coming round. I just don’t understand it. I don’t know why.”

A police investigation into Lucy’s death remains ongoing after a post-mortem examination was unable to explain the cause. Further tests are now being carried out.

No arrests were made, but Lorraine said officers searched their flat and checked CCTV cameras while they were at hospital.

“It made us feel like murderers,” she added. “We would never hurt our child.

“The police say it looks like cot death but they have taken blood and tissue samples.”

Blackpool Council is paying for Lucy’s funeral service, which will be held at Carleton Crematorium on Thursday, but an online fundraising page has been set up and is looking to raise £1,000 for the family.

Lorraine, who said her and her husband are unemployed and live on £100 a week, said she is looking to raise £120 to pay for a funeral car, plus extra to give Lucy ‘the send off she deserves’.

To donate, visit www.gofundme.com/3n18klk