The one thing Trupti Patel said she craved as she walked out of court last week was a return to “some sort of normality” — and who could blame her? For the past six years her life has been what most of us would consider a living nightmare.

First, she lost three babies to cot death and then she was accused of murdering them. A source of terrible grief was compounded by the shame of the accusations and the very real fear of life in prison.

Once the charges were brought, in May 2002, Patel was forced to move 20 miles from the family home and was not allowed to see her surviving daughter, now eight, alone. So it must have felt surreal to step into her own home on Thursday, knowing she was free.

Like Sally Clark, the solicitor who was released by the court of appeal earlier this year when her conviction for killing her two babies was overturned, Patel arrived home to a sea of flowers from well-wishers.

After the initial cheering and delight at the not guilty verdict after the six-week trial came the sober realisation that, as Clark said after her case, there were “no winners”. Three of the Patel babies — Amar, Jamie and Mia — are dead, without anyone being able to say exactly why. Patel’s life, despite her smile on the court steps, is all but ruined.

If the Patel case proves anything, it is that the tide has turned on the notion — promoted by some “experts” — that mothers who suffer multiple cot deaths should automatically come under suspicion.

The Clark case was a high water mark: in November 1999 she was convicted of murdering eight-week-old Harry and his 11-week-old brother Christopher. It took two appeals, three Christmases spent in prison away from her surviving son, now four, and a determined campaign by her family to free her.

Clark was at least lucky in that she had people around her who could take on the system. Her husband, Steve, is also a solicitor and her father, Frank, is a retired senior police officer. Professional friends rallied round to help unpick the prosecution case, exposing flawed statistics, botched pathology and the reversal of the usual presumption of innocence.

Experts such as Professor Sir Roy Meadow, who gave evidence in both cases, believe that “one sudden infant death is a tragedy, two is suspicious and three is murder unless proven otherwise”. A mother is expected to provide an explanation for her baby’s death where medical science fails.

Patel, a 35-year-old pharmacist, is undoubtedly a beneficiary of the huge publicity that surrounded the quashing of Clark’s conviction, as will be — with luck — another half-dozen or so women who have been accused or convicted of killing their babies. A parliamentary group is now looking into the Clark case and Tony Colman, the Labour MP for Putney, has tabled an early day motion demanding a review of cases where Meadow has given evidence.

It could make all the difference to women like Angela Cannings, from Wiltshire, who lost three babies and was convicted of murdering two of them. Like Clark and Patel, Cannings’s husband stood by her, and friends and health professionals testified that she was a loving mother. “If Angela Cannings had been tried after Sally’s appeal,” said John Batt, a member of the Clark defence team, “she wouldn’t be in prison now.”

Clark has — as she hoped — faded into obscurity. Like Patel, when she was freed from prison she wanted nothing more than to be a “normal” mum. But her experience gives pointers to what Patel might face.

Relief, yes, but depression too. Like Clark, Patel has had little real chance to grieve for her babies. Clark has been seeing a counsellor and although she has begun to rebuild her life she is “a long way” from taking up the reins of her old life as a solicitor.