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.

Where are all these vicious threads full of people abusing formula feeding mums and those who wean before 6 months?

Almost every thread on the topic (granted they often run into many pages) gets flooded with "who cares how you feed your baby I only care how I feed mine" they tend to have a small handful of posters who make strange statements but those get pulled on it very quickly usually in a very insulting way. The overwhelming majority of the posts are do whats right for you leave me to do whats right for me. If your lucky you get those who actually take the time to read up to date stuff who challenge these guidelines.

So much the same as any co sleeping one.

Not at all tricyletops!

Certain parts of the evidence are compelling. Back to sleep - yes. Overheating, yes. Removing suffocation hazards - common sense. Cot bumpers, eh, not sure but cot bumpers in themselves don't serve any purpose other than looking pretty. I wasn't convinced by the dummy recommendation, which has now been scrapped. I'm also not convinced by any co sleeping study, I have yet to see a study which has taken out the variables which can convince me it's dangerous - I don't think that it is. As long as the area is made safe for the baby there is NOTHING that will convince me that there is an inherent danger in the parent sleeping close by to their infant. In fact I feel this is extremely beneficial, and could improve safety along the lines of kangaroo care. A cot is safe because it is an area which is free from hazards, ie, used properly it prevents suffocation, overlying and falls. You can prevent these things in a bed, too, by taking sensible precautions.

I felt safe and secure with my baby right beside me, I was aware of his breathing, I could feel his temperature (and I did adjust blankets several times a night almost unconsciously). I woke up before he cried every single time he was ill, either because I realised he was hot or inexplicably just before he vomited - I don't know what I was responding to on the vomit occasions because we were both asleep, but it was there and these kind of observations have been made not just by me personally but by many people, anecdotally and in the Sleep Lab at Durham university.

At the risk of being shouted at I claim ignorance as I am pregnant for the first time
Everyone tells me that I can use a second had cot for the baby, but not a second hand mattress, as it increases the risk of SIDs exponentially.

My mattress is over 9 years old and has moved through four flats, spent two years in a storage locker and two sexual partners. It is not in its first flush to say the least. I am not planning on replacing it any time soon as I am expecting a baby and I believe they take priority over my mattress needs (I should mention before anyone thinks I'm a bit eugh that I do have a nice new mattress topper on it).
Surely, based on the advice to get completely new bedding for the baby, it would be irresponsible of me to let the baby sleep with me and my husband on my old mattress?

Surely, I am not the only person who would like to co-sleep but won't due to the state of their mattress ?

Tough one. Not sure actually because I happened to buy a new mattress when I was pregnant as the old one we had was awful and horrendous and wasn't supportive at all.

If your mattress topper is new then I would have thought that satisfies the "new" requirement. Although if your mattress topper is very pillowy, it wouldn't be firm which is a requirement, and memory foam is also not advised because it can lead to overheating, I think.

In any case I think "exponentially" is a bit of a misnomer. They don't know what the risk is and it certainly hasn't had as much impact as Back To Sleep which is the main one.

You could look into a bedside cot, scoot the baby across for feeds and then back into the cot when you've finished.

DOes your mattress sag? Is it likely to have developed mold spores etc from time in lock up? Personally I probably wouldn't co-sleep on an old mattress.

That's very interesting BertieBotts about still births compared to SIDS, with your figures that it is 24x more likely to happen than suffering a SIDS bereavement.

That is massively more, and I agree that more funding and research into causes or factors relating to still-birth could potentially prevent more heart-break than putting all (or most) funding into SIDS research.

Of course best if both can be fully funded so that all possible research can take place for both, but we may have relatively speaking got as far as we can with SIDS research and advice (at least with present medical knowledge) when compared with still-birth ?

ffallada - as I said in a previous post, I believe that part of the reason that new cot mattresses are recommended is because it was thought that degradation of the plastics and foam used in many cot mattresses may be a contributing factor to cot death. Your mattress is unlikely to have a PVC cover, nor is it likely to be made of the same sort of foam - it is far more likely to be sprung and made with other stuffing materials, and therefore would not be subject to the same sort of potentially hazardous breakdown products.
However, if it has been stored in any damp conditions, and has any signs of mould, then you should change it anyway for your own health, never mind that of a baby.

The thing with co-sleeping is that when done correctly the risks should be much lower than this study indicates. However, there are so many variables to get right to ensure that optimum level of safety. You’ve got to consider-

• Sleeping position
• Bedding- mattress, topper, sheets (no duvet)
• Ventilation
• Have you or your bed partner been smoking
• Have you or your bed partner been drinking
• Heightened risk of SIDS in babies who were born prematurely, are ill or had a low birth weight.

Clearly if you’re seriously thinking about co-sleeping long term you have the chance to consider these factors and make appropriate changes to your routine or lifestyle to make it as safe as possible. If you’re exhausted one night and in desperation you bring your baby into bed then you probably won’t have done this, or recall the risk factors. But you might remember that the general advice is that it’s not a good idea. MN tends to attract people who are inclined to question ‘why’ and do their own research. This is not representative of the entire population; sometimes guidelines need to be simplified, especially when there are so many risk factors. Guidelines are aimed at the lowest common denominator.

We’ve already seen a few posters who think they’re doing it safely, only to be told by other co-sleepers that they’re actually not. Perhaps the best way forward would be to train midwives, health visitors and breastfeeding support to help parents who wish to sleep this way so that advice can be personalised and bedding etc. assessed on a one-to-one level.

I thought co-sleeping was sleeping in the same room as the baby which IS recommended for the first 6 months and having the baby in bed is bed sharing. Anyway my first was in her own room by 2 months and my second hasn't spent a single night out of my bed in the 8 months since she was born. Follow your instincts and be sensible. Oh and I weaned both early.

I feel instinctually that it is safest sleeping next to my babies. These studies are notoriously unreliable as pp have pointed out. There seems to be such a cultural bias against having babies in your bed, and IMO these studies seem to perpetuate that for some godforsaken reason. I recommend reading Dr. James McKenna's research on shared sleep for another angle.

And why is it that in countries where safe Cosleeping is the norm like Japan, SIDS is almost unheard of?
Don't cosleep if you don't feel it's right for your family but it makes me so angry when it's touted as somehow "riskier" to be close to my baby at night.

I would really like to see the stats if they separate them out for babies sleeping next to the person breastfeeding them vs. sleeping next to anyone else.

This was/is the number one safety consideration for me - I would never allow my babies to sleep next to anyone, adult or child, except me.

Don't really get the stats-bashing here.

The journals I've seen are pretty clear-cut. Completely excluding sofa use, bed-sharing was around twice as common in SIDs victims as in the control group.

If suffocation/crushing is included in the figures, so what - I don't think any of those tragedies occurred to babies in cots.

I co-slept with my three children. DH is a smoker and often drinks before going to bed, so he was sent on the sofa
DD2 could only sleep on my chest for the first two weeks. I believe she needed to hear my heartbeat and to "feel" my breathing.
I do not have the same kind of sleep at all when I co-sleep and when I am alone in bed. When I co-sleep, I am aware of my baby's every move, of changes in her breathing pattern, and I hardly ever move, whereas I tend to roll around a lot when I am on my own.

So what? Because suffocation and crushing are things that can be avoided by careful co-sleeping. SIDS can't. SIDS is due largely to unknown causes, therefore including KNOWN causes (especially avoidable ones) in SIDS figures is ridiculously misleading.

Hands off it is because including a bf baby who is cosleeping in bed with parents doesn't come close to ticking all the boxes which we know to increase safety.

Follow the guidance and you want to see a comparison for bf babies next to their mother placed on a firm flat mattress with no duvet/ pillows, no drugs or alcohol, not when mother is unusually tired and where the baby is next to a safe side. This is very different to a bf baby in bed with parents.

I agree with handsoff, So what if it's not true SIDS?

A baby has a greater chance of dying by bed sharing, even if that risk is very tiny and even if it's not SIDS.

The fact that the deaths might not be true SIDS, and are caused by crushing or suffocation shouldn't mean the stats and guidelines can be discounted in a 'but that would never happen to me, because I co-sleep safely' kind of way.

I co-slept with DS as he had severe reflux and was very hard to settle- but I did think very very carefully about it, and animals doing it did not form part of my decision making in any way.

Blanket ban, ha ha. Duvet even know what they are talking about?

On a serious note I couldn't have survived the early months without co-sleeping. Safe co-sleeping has got to be better than exhaustion and insanity.

Nobody is saying the risks should be discounted. Nobody is saying the safety guidelines should be discounted, far from it!
BUT what I and others are saying is that there is a risk that, if the general baby-sleeping guidelines are DO NOT CO-SLEEP, then the safety guidelines for co-sleeping will probably not be given out to people. This would be more risky for the baby than the current situation, where it is not recommended to co-sleep but if you feel you have/want to then here are the guidelines to doing it safely. IF you follow the safety guidelines fully then what are the risks of actual SIDS? Do we even know now, since all the figures have been muddled?

And if the general guidelines are based on an inflated perceived risk associated with co-sleeping because of a bunch of incorrect figures, then I think it's a stupid way to deal with the situation.

You speak so much sense Thumbwitch - seems the advisers, reporters and perhaps most inexcusably even the researchers seem to be incapable of any subtlety or differentiation in carrying out the research, advising on it, and reporting the advice. Of course at each stage in the process it gets worse in terms of being more generalised, and probably less helpful.

Cheery yes, I saw the opportunity for some humour there myself (even though such a serious topic) .... Not so much a blanket ban more a duvet ban? That sort of thing .... I'm sure ds would groan loudly at my attempts as usual

I still got advice on sleeping DS on his tummy due to the reflux. The risk of SIDS is far higher with tummy sleeping than co- sleeping.
I think the advice will still be provided on co-sleeping, just with a stronger messages that it's not recommended. But I do see your point thumbwitch.

IMO It feels that instead of co-sleeping being a risk that needs to be weighed up, there's a strong view on MN that providing you do it 'correctly' it's perfectly safe. And any opinion or research that suggests otherwise is shot down.

Again, I don't see any major issues with the stats (and I do have a degree in stats).

It is very clear that even safer bed-sharing is a high risk activity.

m.bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/5/e002299.full

When neither parent smoked, and the baby was less than 3?months, breastfed and had no other risk factors, the AOR for bed sharing versus room sharing was 5.1 (2.3 to 11.4) and estimated absolute risk for these room sharing infants was very low (0.08 (0.05 to 0.14)/1000 live-births). This increased to 0.23 (0.11 to 0.43)/1000 when bed sharing. Smoking and alcohol use greatly increased bed sharing risk.

With a risk calculated at 5 times the non-sharing level, it would take a lot of misclassifations for it not to be significantly more dangerous.

The variables of the dad plus baby in the middle plus a memory foam mattress and a duvet (all well within their safer bed sharing criteria) don't, for many of us, come close to safe co sleeping.

The stats there are fine, they just don't tell me what I want to know. The missing variables do potentially represent a massive miscalculation of what constitutes safer bed sharing.

I think the difference to an adult mattress to a second hand baby mattress is that many baby mattresses are foam compared to sprung which can let more moisture out. Plus adults are less likely to vomit, urinate and poo on their mattresses. The thought around old cot mattresses is that mildew and mould spores can be present and be overwhelming for a baby - another one which might not be totally clear post mortem.

I wouldn't cosleep on a 9 year old mattress which had possibly been damp and in mould friendly conditions - probably fine for you but not for a newborn or young baby.

My mattress was relatively new with ds but if I am lucky to have another dc I would get a mattress for after the birth (wouldn't want waters to go on a new mattress! ) and make sure it was aired before use.

I plan to use a cosleeper cot if we do have another. I didn't cosleep until ds was 9 mths but I took our mattress on his bedroom floor and did so safely - wanted to get him used to his bedroom plus not fall risk :) ds is still bf at 3.5 :) but sleeps in his own bed but sometimes gets in with me at 5am and mostly sleeps through. He didn't sleep through till over 2yo when an op I had forced the issue. I minimised risk where I could and not just having ds and me on a king size mattress worked well.