Two-month-old Sophia Stanworth was found dead at her home in Birtwistle Avenue on July 7th by her mum, Miss Sasha Stanworth.

The inquest was told Miss Stanworth had fed and bathed her youngest daughter the previous evening and Sophia was asleep in her car seat in the front room of the house.

Miss Stanworth said she and her mother had been drinking when they went to bed and she did not know how her baby daughter had got upstairs to bed.

She added Sophia usually slept in a moses basket by the side of her bed but, when she woke at 2-30 p.m. the next day, she found Sophia in bed with her. She was dead.

Miss Stanworth said a small bruise found on her daughter's head had been caused days earlier when her eldest child had been playing with her.

Pathologist Dr Melanie Newbold said she could find no natural cause of death. "It is not at all uncommon with sudden death in the first year of life not to find any positive finds at post-mortem," she said.

"However, it is becoming clear they occur more commonly in certain environments."

She added sudden deaths among young babies were more common where the child has been sleeping in the same bed as a parent.

Recording the verdict, East Lancashire Coroner Mr Richard Taylor said: "I have little choice but to return an open verdict as I cannot be sure what happened."