Pathologists are at a loss to explain why a three-day-old baby died while sleeping next to his mother in hospital, an inquest in Oxford heard this week.

Charles Griggs died as he slept beside his mother at Chipping Norton Hospital on March 18 last year.

He had been delivered by Caesarean section 14 days prematurely at the John Radcliffe Hospital, in Oxford, weighing 6lb 9oz.

The baby had been transferred to Chipping Norton Hospital the day before his death.

He had been feeding normally and his mother, Sarah Bennett, of The Sands, in Milton-under-Wychwood, near Chipping Norton, wanted to be closer to her family.

Tracey Wiskin, a midwife at Chipping Norton Hospital, told the inquest that Miss Bennett had woken up on March 18 and asked her: "I know this is a silly question, but is he breathing?".

Miss Wiskin said Charles' skin looked very white, was not breathing and had no pulse, although he was still warm.

She immediately called an ambulance crew and gave the baby heart massage.

Dr Colene Bowker, a consultant pathologist at the John Radcliffe Hospital, said all the tests on Charles had proved negative and there was no sure way of knowing what killed the child, although the most likely cause of death was asphyxia.

Oxfordshire coroner Nicholas Gardiner recorded an open verdict.

He said: "Unfortunately the tests were totally inconclusive and were unable to positively establish the cause of death."