To think the new blanket ban on co-sleeping (new NICE guidelines warning of dangers of co-sleeping with under 1's announced today) may be going too far?

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

Of course NICE have a duty to inform parents of research that can inform their parenting choices, particularly advising about any risk factors relating to SIDS.

But in proposing that all parents should be advised of dangers of co-sleeping during the first year have they perhaps got the balance wrong? Co-sleeping can (I believe from everything I've read) be relatively safe provided other risk factors, such as smoking and drinking or other drugs are not a factor too, and if steps are taken to avoid over-heating (duvets should be avoided?)

The adviser mentions that co-sleeping may make BFing easier, or be culturally preferred, but have they taken these things sufficiently into account in the way the advice has been put forward, and also the way it is being reported on the News (I watched the ITV news at lunch-time and found the advice given was rather strongly worded in my view)

I enjoyed co-sleeping with my dd and ds, and it worked well for us, also facilitating extended (or natural term) BFing. Being close to my babies was very important to them and me, and part of a whole approach to parenting which I feel has given them a very secure base from which to go out confidently and independently to explore the wider world.

Would be interested to know how others feel about this?

Would also say .... A couple of generations back we did have a cot death in the family - my granny's eldest dd. So I've always been particularly aware of how devastating it is and would of course do anything reasonable to minimise the risks, both for my own DC and for others.

The third paragraph should have said "For comparison, there is no 5 year age range where more than 300 die in transport accidents. Just over 200 20-24 year olds die in transport accidents each year (so each year is around 2/15 the SIDS rate).

Where are these threads which make out formula feeding mothers are monsters? I've seen the very odd thread where one, maybe two posters say something ridiculous. That's in amongst hundreds, nay thousands of supportive posts. I see about the same number of twattish comments about bfing too. That's not an anti anything attitude. It's some wazzocks wading in and you get that everywhere, whatever the topic.

At best every ff thread has links,scaremongering and stat twisting,search and you'll find the worst that goes beyond that.

Interesting considering the "dangers" of ff in this country if you follow guidelines are minuscule compared to that of co- sleeoing which can be chats strophic if it goes wrong and involves actual fatalities and several.

Have still yet to see a stat directly linked to a formula fatality in this country,certainly never have in anywhere like the numbers quoted on here re co- sleeping fatalities.

Catastrophic

I haven't seen anyone on this thread or any other thread suggest that formula feeding is fatal or catastrophic, I don't think the two arguments can be compared. If you read the statistics (freely available online from the national office of statistics) that were reviewed as a basis for the nice guidelines you will find that the largest numbers of fatalities in co sleeping were found when parents fell asleep on the sofa with their baby or had been using drugs and/or alcohol. Almost exactly 50% of sids occurred (in the statistics that were reviewed) when parents were co sleeping but 50% occurred when the baby was sleeping in a cot.NICE guidelines are just that - guidelines for health care professionals based on a review of literature and studies to guide best practice and in this case due to the lack of firm evidence for or against it is advised that health care professionals advise against co sleeping. Doesn't mean a blanket ban or that anyone HAS to abide by the guidelines. Why are we all so quick to pitch against each other about choice of parenting practices?

It's not 300 any more. It was 149 in 2012, which is where your 51 figure for external causes comes from. Compare that to 729,674 live birth rate in 2012. Rates are going down. It might be more common than accidents but that doesn't make it a lot, or a big risk. Obviously, 150 babies dying is too many, and it isn't insignificant if it happens to you, but total non emotional statistics - it is very unlikely. You're looking at chances of just over 1:5000.

I have heard cries on these threads before to change the focus. Since any research on cot death is now statistically insignificant, it would seem that we have reached the pinnacle of where research can go in this area, and maybe it is time to put more focus on research into causes and prevention of stillbirth, which, like SIDS, is concentrated more heavily in certain sectors of society implying there may be some kind of causal or at least correlational relationship. There were 3,558 stillbirths in 2012 so to compare that to SIDS, it is 24 times more likely to happen, and surely just as devastating.

To clarify, I'm not saying stop research into SIDS completely but I feel it might be more productive to look into issues relating to stillbirth since this is still a bigger risk and we don't know much about all of the causes.

We have to remember that we are only animals and it's extremely recent that we've had such good infant mortality overall. I know that's not any comfort if you have lost a child but 100 years ago it was almost expected. However heartbreaking I think we do have to come to terms with the fact that science can't solve everything.

I had a baby in October, so I've spent a fair amount of time in the baby threads in the past 8 months - all in all I've been very pleasantly surprised, I expected a lot of judgy-ness about ff, and overall people are very supportive.

It's true that a lot of people suggest co-sleeping, but I can't really recall many (if any) being judgy about it either, when the stats come out it's usually to reassure mums who are feeling unsure/guilty about the risks. That may be a problem in itself if the stats are flawed, but in my experience it comes from the desire to be supportive, not from a desire to make the mums feel bad for not co-sleeping.

Well I have.

I personally find it terrifying that parents co sleep with young babies....I don't think I'd sleep a wink!!

The thing that worries me about this type of catch-all policy is that it might prevent people accessing the information to help them make the safest plan possible for the times when co-sleeping happens because everyone is just too tired to get up to re-settle the baby in its cot.

^ This

I didn't want to co-sleep but my pfb was a Velcro child - screamed second she wasn't held by me though would tolerate DH occassionally- went on months. My parents came over when DH was away and insisted on the cot - she kept up screaming all evening - they couldn't believe her persistence ended up me being given her and co-sleeping any way.

I was lucky I had MW and HV who told me it was o.k and how to make it safe - I also went and looked at the research and found that they didn't exclude sofa deaths as well.

There were times bf - that I did nearly fall asleep - I decide it was safer to be in bed with safety in mind than accidentally fall asleep on the sofa downstairs.

Subsequent DC and the HCP were very anti it to extent I hid it by never mentioning it after initial bad reaction.

I personally have never vilified ff or early weaning - though I did bf and tried to wait till 26 weeks for own researched and specific reasons- but have seen threads where that has happened.

So I do get the MN hypocrisy thing - even though I did co-sleep with mine.

OnlyOneScoop if you had a baby who naturally co-sleeps it's the most natural and beautiful thing in the world.

That's why these guide lines make me so .

Because of a tiny 'possible' increase in risk, our risk adverse (statistically illiterate) litigation fearing nanny state has found another guilt trip for exhausted parents.

Babies are beautiful, time with them is very short and it shouldn't all be spent in a sleep deprived haze, worrying about co-sleeping, feeding methods, exactly how many minutes DC have spent in their car seat etc.

Sadly, of course, even if the government, HV etc stuck to giving sensible, measured information. This Morning and the rest of the media would still dole out sensationalist tripe!

In any case, there is always going to be a problem with co-sleeping SIDS figures as you are more likely to co-sleep with a sick child than a healthy one.

DD1 would only co-sleep when she was feeling grumpy and DD2 stayed more of the night, came in earlier in the morning.

I'm not sure every minor virus would be spotted at postmortem, the fact that DD2 got hayfever from her first summer certainly would have been.

Wouldn't have.

That true - DS was much happier generally to go into his cot but when he had chest infections he was in with us - he was later disagnosed with asthma. I'm not sure those would be picked up post mortem either.

However heartbreaking I think we do have to come to terms with the fact that science can't solve everything.

That's all well and good, but here you have something that science has shown to be harmful and you're advocating a shrug and "hey, it's nature's way"?

I've never seen the appeal, I must admit, but even if I had the evidence is clear enough for me. MN's attitude to statistics baffles me.

Yes that's what gets me too Elephants - my baby absolutely hated her cot, she was so much more content co-sleeping, and I finally got some sleep too. Everyone wins.

I'm not an advocate of co-sleeping in the sense that I think it's better and everyone should do it, I just think it definitely worked for us, and made the first few months of Dd's life much nicer for her, and for us.

So it makes me sad to be told I shouldn't have done it/shouldn't do it in the future, it makes me feel guilty for something I know worked wonderfully for us.

That's all well and good, but here you have something that science has shown to be harmful and you're advocating a shrug and "hey, it's nature's way"? hmm

I think rather than just accept science you have to look at the work that led to these conclusions and how good that research.

Accidentally falling asleep on sofa, adults being in deeper sleep due to drugs or alcohol - are all included in the data/research that led to this conclusions. They are no applicable to how I co-slept.

I'd say same the same with bf/ff science where there is a fair proportion of researching showing bf being benefit but not accounting for the higher social economic groups doing more bf.

Making parnets aware of the dangerous of co-sleeping is fine - not telling them how to do it safely not good.

Similar with ff - HCP not giving ff mother information/advice about how to do it safely as it will enourage bf rates is bloody mad- but apparently happens.

Had a look through the research and it doesn't answer two things for me which make it much less persuasive.

I want to know how many if the babies were in bed because they were unusually hard to settle that night so may have been unwell.

I also want to see how many babies were alongside just a bf mother, the fact that they are using parental co sleeping and not distinguishing between mum and dad invalidates it for me. The most persuasive research from sleep labs tells us that it is specifically bf mums who are instinctive co sleepers. Ff mums and dads maybe individually safe too but not as a group. So it seems to me they haven't actually yet accounted for bf mums bed sharing with optimum conditions.

I think the research should be shared but accidental bed sharing has risen and so have deaths in this group.

I also want to see much more research into still births, we have a poor record on these when compared to other similar countries.

about stillbirths: the research is usually also presented for the general population, the number we get is something along the lines of 1 stillbirth in 200 birth - but that includes the women who smoke, who drink, who have gestational diabetes, who are obese, etc.

they do tell you that the risk is much less if you don't have any known risk factor, but the published figures are still the general figures that include everyone.

so maybe that's just the way these studies are usually conducted?

Not rtft but I suspect it will lead to more exhausted woman falling asleep with children in chairs which is where the real danger lies.

Which will then prove that "cosleeping" is dangerous

and so on and so on

"...the evidence is clear enough for me. "

But that's just it - the evidence isn't "clear enough" because the statistics are nonsensical, as they have conflated situations that shouldn't be conflated. Falling asleep on the sofa and smothering your baby by accident is neither "co-sleeping", nor SIDS, but it will be added into the "death by SIDS when co-sleeping" stats. WHY?

No one says you have to co-sleep - it doesn't suit everyone (either parents or babies!) - but it's a valid choice for some and the safety guidelines need to be maintained.

Still births - well, one thing I would like to see is mandatory thrombophilia testing. I have one of the most common forms of thrombophilia, Factor V Leiden. 1 in 20 people have this, that's a LOT. There are other common thrombophilias, and other less common ones - but they all increase the risk of foetal loss, and of maternal sudden death due to blood clots. A friend of mine has antiphospholipid antibodies, another clot risk - she had a stillborn son a few years ago, because of micro clots in the umbilicus. The test isn't the cheapest, that's the problem - but personally I'd like to see all pregnant women tested for it. Actually, I'd like to see all women who ask to go on the oral contraceptive pill tested for it too, as taking the combined OC pill also increases your risk of blood clots, and it's as well to be prepared!

I know this isn't going to stop all stillbirths, of course it isn't! But I do believe it would remove some of the risk for some.