YOU DON’T have to have watched the EastEnders ‘baby swap cot death’ plotline to know that it’s crass, hurtful and will unbearably distress parents of newborns and all those who have lost their baby in this way.

Anne Diamond – who lost her baby, Sebastian, to cot death 20 years ago – has blasted the show and more than 6,000 folk have complained to the BBC and rightly so.

I’ve interviewed Anne and many other parents who lost babies soon after they had them. And their bewilderment and distress – even when the event happened 20, 30 years before – is shattering.

For me, these interviews remain the most haunting I have ever done.

Only this week a Bournemouth mum was kind enough to explain to me for an interview in this newspaper just why the EastEnders’ scenes were so hurtful.

Listening to her sadness as she described the heart-rending feeling of ‘empty arms’ – when your body is crying out to hold your baby but your mind is telling you she or he is not there – I felt enraged.

How dare the scriptwriters and editors who produce EastEnders do this to the thousands of women – and men – who have suffered in this way?

How dare they not take the trouble to realise that it if it’s dramatic effect they’re after, nothing is more tragic, more against the natural order of things than the death of a baby?

Even after the event the BBC wouldn’t come clean, claiming the highly respected cot death charity, the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths, had helped with the storyline when they know damn well that all they asked for advice on was Kat Moon’s possible reaction to a cot death.

Thanks to Anne Diamond, cot death has reduced from around 2,000 a year to around 300. But that still means that six babies a week, nearly one every day, are lost in this way.

The Ronnie Branning storyline was a great opportunity to bring the subject into the public arena in a sensitive and educational manner.

But in the name of ratings and sensationalism the Beeb decided to pander to the old, sick prejudices surrounding mums who have suffered cot death.

The saddest thing of all is that not only can cot death be portrayed responsibly in drama, it actually has been very well portrayed in EastEnders before, when café owners Sue and Ali lost their baby, Hassan. So I hope the BBC sacks all those responsible for this fiasco.

Then let’s just hope they have one manager with the common sense to go cap in hand to Anne Diamond and ask her to make a sensitive programme about cot death, containing lots of useful information and advice for all those affected by it.