A detailed four-year study in southwest Britain on bedsharing with infants has concluded that when known risk factors—such as alcohol, drugs, or extreme overtiredness—are excluded, cosleeping with an infant does not increase the risk of SIDS (known in Britain as "cot death").
Reactions across Britain included from relief from midwives who now feel they can stop telling parents who want to cosleep not to and enthusiasm from breastfeeding advocates, as well as caution from anti-SIDS advocates.
One point the researcher, Peter Blair of University of Bristol, made that I hadn't thought of is that since falling asleep with a kid on a sofa is quite dangerous (loose cushions, places to get wedged), there is a risk from parents who dutifully put a baby to sleep in a crib, get up to feed it on the couch, and fall asleep again by accident. The proportion of SIDS deaths occurring on a sofa has doubled in the past decade.
Meanwhile, the study has received little to no play in the American media. Local American papers are still churning out stories almost every day about rising rates of "cosleeping deaths," with few making the distinction between risky behaviors and cosleeping itself, or if they do, burying it under sensational headlines and leads. One paper even wrote "the problem, known as 'co-sleeping' or 'parent rollover.' " At least this appears to have been edited online since I first saw it.
Here's hoping some sense will wend its way across the pond.
Photo by davef3138, via Flickr.
Related Posts:
More by this author:
