Women who smoke during pregnancy increase their risk of miscarriage, premature delivery and cot death.
The Office of National Statistics analysed whether there were any similarities between cot death babies.
Scientists have found clues to the development of heart disease, autism, anxiety, schizophrenia and even cot death.
One mother, Lavinia Postlethwaite's first daughter died at 10 weeks from cot death.
Mrs Cannings had always insisted that the babies were victims of cot death.
Dr David Drucker at Manchester University has identified a "cot death gene".
Young mothers, and those bringing up the baby on their own appeared to be more at risk of suffering a cot death.
If you take the whole of the UK population, simple maths tells you that one baby in every 1, 600 born will die from cot death.
She said the organisation had been taking steps to ensure all baby carers in the UK know how to reduce the risk of cot death.
Baby Peter's father said he comforted the boy's mother at that stage because he believed her explanation that he had died suddenly, probably from cot death.
In addition, mothers with three or more children were 30% more likely to lose a subsequent child to cot death than those bringing up their first baby.
Mothers who registered the birth of the baby without a named father were six times more likely to lose the baby through a cot death than married couples.
Dr Caroline Blackwell, one of the study team from the university's department of medical microbiology, said the discovery also had implications for research into cot death and chest infections among babies.
Three-week-old Marc Clynes died 15 years ago from cot death.
Pathologist Professor Peter Berry, for the prosecution, said in his opinion the two children had been suffocated and were not victims of sudden infant death syndrome or cot death.
He suggested it was possible that "natural variation" in the rate of cot death could be responsible for the vast improvements seen around the time the new advice was introduced.
It is difficult to prove - for prosecution or defence - that, in the face of these uncertainties, an individual cot death was either definitely due to abuse, or definitely not.
Anne Diamond, the broadcaster who gave evidence to the Leveson inquiry about press intrusion following the cot death of her baby son, Sebastian, in 1991, said she felt "desperately hurt and disillusioned".
BBC: Press regulation: Reaction to royal charter announcement
Dr Wilson told BBC News Online that while studies showed that families who lost one baby to cot death were at increased risk of a recurrence, it still was not entirely clear why this might be happening.
Professor Meadow's figure on the likelihood of cot deaths was disputed by other experts who argued genetic and environmental factors made the odds of a second cot death in the same family closer to 200 to one.
He said data showed that in families which had lost one child to cot death, subsequent babies were at an increased risk of dying from the same cause, or from a variety of natural causes, such as meningitis.
For example, if you looked at the risk of a cot death among couples in which the mother is under 27, has more than one previous child, with both parents unemployed and are smokers, it increases to approximately one in 200.
He did admit that he had carried out his own research into cot death in infants - a subject on which he was a world authority - without seeking the coroner's permission, but says very little of this was carried out on children's bodies.
The advice given by FSID on how to reduce the risk of cot death remains the same - parents are urged to put their babies to sleep on their backs, and smoking by parents both in pregnancy and afterwards near the child is discouraged.
应用推荐