After a visit with grandma, the day Molly Rose died, Jill pushed her up the street and Molly waved goodbye.

Jill knew something was wrong as soon as she entered her daughter Molly Rose’s bedroom. The little girl wasn’t breathing. "I screamed at her, ‘Don’t you dare leave me,’" she recalls. Jill lifted her baby, then one week off 10 months, out of the cot and onto the floor and began CPR. Hearing her screams, husband Ian and older sons Dan and Tim ran in. Ian called emergency services, yelling "Don’t stop!" over and over again at his wife. When the ambulance officers arrived they wrenched Jill from her lifeless little girl and knelt to continue, but their efforts to revive Molly proved fruitless. Losing Molly to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) was inconceivable. Only the night before Jill and Ian crept into Molly’s room for a goodnight cuddle and Jill voiced her feelings. "Life is perfect", she said. "We’ve got everything we want".

The next morning the couple had lost their dream, Molly had been dead for between two to four hours when Jill went to wake her. Almost crawling, Molly had the mobility that usually protects babies from a SIDS death and was four months beyond the high-risk period.

A numbness settled over the family. A barrage of questions came from all angles. Police wanted to confirm the circumstances of Molly’s death and the medical staff needed to know immediately whether the family would donate her organs. There was an autopsy and funeral. Wanting to be "strong", Ian went back to his job a week after the funeral, but in private frequently broke down.

Jill concedes it’s hard to let go of the little girl who was so placid she would sit with anyone. "She was going to be my best friend and I’d already bought clothes that were going to fit her when she was four". But the couple slowly moved on and decided to have another baby, "not to replace Molly, we’d never do that," explains Jill.

"But we couldn’t finish on that note. We had to have something to dream again." Just over a year after Molly’s death, during an ultrasound shortly before Jill was due to give birth, the technician told them, "I can see two heads." Two healthy twin boys, Liam and Riley, were born. But SIDS had stolen the couple’s trust and they didn’t sleep, standing over the boys every night flipping them each time they rolled over.

Six years on, the twins are raucous. Jill still checks the pulses of her children at night, even Tim and Dan, now 15 and 17. "You learn to live with it," Jill says. She swaps a knowing look with her husband, "But you never forget," he adds, "and you never quite understand."

There’s nothing more joyous than the birth of a new baby. Girl or boy, that child is precious.

For the family and friends, it is heart warming and rewarding to see that child grow and blossom. Yet for some families that joy is short lived, their cherished baby may be stillborn or die suddenly and unexpectedly.

SIDS and Kids began in 1977 as a parent driven support group for those whose children had died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), or cot death as it was known. Today SIDS and Kids provides 24 hour, 365 days a year crisis support services, health promotion programs, community education resources and materials, all free of charge and with no major government funding.

Over the years, we have funded medical research and helped to reduce the death rate of SIDS through our SIDS and Kids Safe Sleeping campaign. But we still have so much more work to do. There is a need for further research into unexplained stillbirth and infant death. Also there are always more families to support who have suffered the death of a child.

To reduce the risks of SIDS, ongoing education is vital to promote the ways to sleep babies safely.

You can help SIDS and Kids save the life of a baby by becoming a SIDS and Kids donor. All donations over $2 are tax deductible and will go directly towards new research to find the causes of unexplained child death, education to reduce the risks of SIDS and support for bereaved families.

Research has found some important ways to reduce the risk of SIDS and create a safe sleeping environment for babies and young children: Your support of SIDS and Kids will help us to raise new parents’ awareness about these ways. It will also directly help families like Jill and Ian’s.

If you would like to help us click here