Overlaying or overlying is the act of accidentally smothering a child to death by rolling over it during sleep.

Athelstan Braxton Hicks Athelstan Braxton Hicks (19 June 1854 – 17 May 1902) was a coroner in London and Surrey for two decades at the end of the 19th century. He was given the nickname "The Children's Coroner" for his conscientiousness in investigating the suspicio ...

, the Deputy Coroner for London and Surrey, noted in 1889 that "during the last ten months no less than 500 cases had occurred in which children had been suffocated while in bed with their parents, in London alone." He estimated that a third of the allegedly accidental deaths of children were due to suffocations. Overcrowded conditions often led to overlaying and in another case he noted "it was no use reading the father a lesson on sleeping in a crowded room, for he was hard-up and could not pay for large apartments. The jury returned a verdict of "Accidental death," and expressed its opinion that the father had done the best he could in the circumstances." In researching smothering deaths by black

slaves Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

in the American South, which occurred nine times more frequently than in white families, Michael P. Johnson suggests that

sudden infant death syndrome Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), sometimes known as cot death or crib death, is the sudden unexplained death of a child of less than one year of age. Diagnosis requires that the death remain unexplained even after a thorough autopsy and ...

was in fact to blame (which, if it happened in white families, would be heavily underreported because of the social stigma attached).

References

{{Reflist Infant mortality Manslaughter