Why do people question medical stuff?

[QueenPaw]

Post on FB I know from midwives saying basically "these sleep positioned/nest things are dangerous and increase SIDS risk, don't use"

Replies
< tags friend > "these look good, should get one for Baby X"
NICU use them, they can't be that dangerous (because obviously a hospital with monitoring is the same as home)
Shouldn't sell them if they're that dangerous
I used one and my baby is fine, got to make your own choices
Nothing wrong with them, you do you hun
Then a load of laughing emojis at anyone who rightly points out all the evidence and links to it with "here come the mum police"

I'm just WTF at it. Like the midwife is actively saying these are DANGEROUS and they're all ah well, my baby, and they're fine

I used a sleepyhead because it was the only way my son would sleep. The risks are there but are tiny. The odds are not far off that if dying in a car crash. Yes it is factually true to say it is dangerous but you are not giving an accurate reflection of how dangerous.

Giving mothers black and white advise is dangerous and judgmental. Midwives have to tell you these things because they can't be blamed if something goes wrong. Breastfeeding is better factually but for a whole load of reasons it might not be best for an individual and their child.

So yabu. Stop being a zealot. Motherhood is not a competition and regardless of how risk adverse you are you can't protect your baby from everything. Leave people to make up their own minds.

Can people stop making up that midwives only advise against things because they’re afraid of getting sued??

Nowhere are we ever told to say things so we don’t get sued.

We don’t promote sleep nests because there is no evidence that they are safe. People choose to do whatever they like but we advise based on the evidence we have (cot bumpers have directly caused deaths). If people choose to go ahead and do things anyway then that’s their choice but we don’t advise people not to use something in case parents sue us!

As for ‘well it never did my child any harm’ it probably didn’t but when you read the campaign pages of heartbroken parents of babies that died from SIDS with risk factors or from suffocation after using unsafe products - I’m sure they told themselves it couldn’t happen to them too.

@Iwouldlikesomecake it was from the lullaby trust but shared by a midwife group

TaraRhu

My big bugbear is how they describe the risks. It's a bit like the rear facing car seats for 5 years olds obsessives. Something being "5 times more dangerous" isnt a useful statistic if it's say, 5 times more dangerous than a 0.0001% chance, as its still a tiny/low risk.

I'd like to see these risks presented as "there are x deaths from SIDS per year in the UK. Y% of those involve sleep nests/for bumpers" etc.

I know what you mean op but I'm currently going against safe sleeping guidance as my 4mo naps in a different room to me and has since he was about 4 weeks old. He won't nap unless he's in his crib with the curtains shut. I have an older child and housework to do etc. I can't possibly sit in a dark room 4 times a day for 45 minutes at a time so I had to use my judgement that the risk of SIDS in a healthy, breastfed baby who isn't around smokers, sleeping in a safe crib is vanishingly small and he needs sleep to develop normally.

@shouldistop It is possible should a parent choose that. I bed share and contact nap. My daughter is 10 months old. She takes all of her sleeps next to me.

I'd like to see these risks presented as "there are x deaths from SIDS per year in the UK. Y% of those involve sleep nests/for bumpers" etc.

Ah but that would be trusting adults to look at stats and make decisions for themselves

I had a read about SIDS stats as I was concerned about leaving ds2 when he was tiny to nap in a different room. Apparently most deaths in infants under 4mo involved unsafe co-sleeping with parents (too many covers / pillows / smokers / alcohol / not breastfeeding etc) And in infants over 4mo most deaths involved soft toys / loose blankets / not sleeping on a flat, firm surface.

You've really got to dig to get any proper stats though.

@Trustisamust do you also have another child at home? Do you sit in your dark bedroom while your baby is sleeping in their crib? What do you do with your other child while you're doing that?

Survivors bias/ confirmation bias.

Also people don't like to be wrong.

Medical advice is not constantly changing at all. Its been babies on their back to sleep for 30 years, as soon as the evidence was clear. You don't know better than the professionals and you can't judge the risks you don't understand.*

That’s not true at all. I’m a medical professional and advice and practice has moved dramatically from when I started over 30 years ago to now. When I think back to some of the things we did and prescribed 30 years ago I think wtf but it was ‘best practice’ at the time. I’m guessing in 30 years someone will look back to what they are doing now and think wtf.

Keeping on topic though, a PP was right, when I was born (over 50 years ago) the advice was side sleeping. I recall my mum and aunts having very robust discussions as 10 years later (so younger cousins) the advice was they must sleep on their tummies. The older mums argued side was best as this is what they had drummed into them. Younger mums argued latest medical/scientific information was stomach was the must. Dr’s also ‘prescribed’ a drink a day for pregnant women in my generation and again the argument between our parents was that some women’s Dr’s insisted this must be Guinness and also had to be kept up when baby born and breastfeeding, other women’s Dr’s insisted it must be a glass of wine and others had sherry foist upon them. Women did it as, like you say, you shouldn’t question the professionals or judge risks you can’t understand.

@Trustisamust don't worry, I just advanced searched. You have a 13yo, a 10yo and the baby and I think you're also back at work? So bit of a different situation to having a baby and a pre-schooler at home. And your older child doesn't want to go to bed by themselves?

Think I'll carry on my way...

People seem to be ignorant of the fact that yes the advice changes alongside THE EVIDENCE not just because they change their minds. It’s fact based and science based and as another pp said it’s why we have medical advances and treatments for cancer etc. Yes it changes because as we learn more we tweak or change the rules. As we test theories we may realise that some things we previously thought were good are actually not. Eg baby sleeping on front to “avoid choking on vomit” as per 70s-80s was leading to more SIDS deaths.

People also don’t put their child first. Sorry but it’s true. People are inherently selfish and tend to put themselves first. Perhaps they see that as the greater good as perhaps (in very few actual cases) they’d break down etc and the family would fall apart if they didn’t do the easier thing regarding their baby over the safest thing. Be it formula, car seats, sleep nests, sleeping in separate rooms etc.

People then get defensive about this. It’s hard to admit.

Funnily enough I saw the same ad to protect babies from 'flat' heads. I posted how dangerous it was and reported the add. Not one person said they were ok and every comment was similar to mine.

People also don’t put their child first. Sorry but it’s true. People are inherently selfish and tend to put themselves first.

Ehh no this is not true in the vast majority of cases. The vast majority of parents will do their best by their child. But humans arent perfect. Regarding co sleeping a number of people do it safely. The studies which highlighted the increased risk or sids included al forms of co sleeping which currently include things like falling asleep on the couch. Incidentally falling asleep on the couch causes a 6 fold increase in the risk of sids. To my knowledge ( and I have searched the medical literature) no papers show an increased risk of sids with safe sleeping practises. If anyone has a paper showing this I would love to see it. I co slept as if I didnt I risked falling asleep on the couch with him and that was a risk I was not willing to take.

Regarding nests current nice guidelines on safe sleeping dont actually examine nests and I could only find 1 paper where they looked atsleeping in a nest. They didnt directly compare sids though so hard to draw conclusions. Interestingly that paper highlighted a doubling in co sleeping practices in the past decade with no increase in sids. They also found in that study that 40% of people were using nests once again no increases in sids have been seen in the past decade.

I am a scientist and a lecturer in a medical school. I am fully aware how thing are examined and changed however a number of practices require further study to determine if and how dangerous they are.

@SarahAndQuack I’m not sure that is what people are saying though is it?

Do you think? I think it's quite a common thing to say.

Being totally honest I find there is a very vocal and sometimes quite pushy bed sharing / co sleeping aspect to MN. I don’t know why.

@daffodilsandprimroses

Being totally honest I find there is a very vocal and sometimes quite pushy bed sharing / co sleeping aspect to MN. I don’t know why.

Because there is alot of misinformation out there about co sleeping. If somone want to co sleep safely they should be provided with the information on how to do it safely rather then being told that they are going to kill their baby by doing so as someone suggested upthread. 90 % of cosleeping deaths are caused by cosleeping in dangerous environments like on the sofa or in a bed with someone who has drank/ smoked or taken drugs.

If instead of threads about how parents are just ignoring medical advice ( which your not doing by co sleeping by the way, nice guidelines state parents should be informed or risks associated with it but not discourages or told not to do it). I do understand d that that this thread was aimed more at the nests but the OP also suggested that co sleepers are going against medical advice which they are not.

@Aimee1987 that's true but I did see one thread where the op stated several times she didn't want to co-sleep and posters constantly suggested it, told her it would solve all sleep issues and why did she start a thread if she was going to ignore advice (to co-sleep). Maybe the pp saw the same thread.

[quote shouldistop]@Aimee1987 that's true but I did see one thread where the op stated several times she didn't want to co-sleep and posters constantly suggested it, told her it would solve all sleep issues and why did she start a thread if she was going to ignore advice (to co-sleep). Maybe the pp saw the same thread. [/quote]
I did yes and I also know anybody who is struggling to sleep with a new baby is urged to try co sleeping.

I think it’s fine to tout it as a suggestion but it didn’t work for us. And personally I don’t feel comfortable with it. We have a next to me crib. That’s the best of both worlds for me.

[quote shouldistop]@Aimee1987 that's true but I did see one thread where the op stated several times she didn't want to co-sleep and posters constantly suggested it, told her it would solve all sleep issues and why did she start a thread if she was going to ignore advice (to co-sleep). Maybe the pp saw the same thread. [/quote]
I dont agree with that. What works for one family doesnt work for another. My DP didnt want to co sleep so the baby slept between me and his next to me crib.

That’s not true at all. I’m a medical professional and advice and practice has moved dramatically from when I started over 30 years ago to now.

Of course its true. The Back to Sleep campaign was over 30 years ago, it dramatically reduced the rates of cot death and has not been changed since.
Medical advice goes in one direction....as we learn more. Nobody went back to smoking is good for you after the evidence showed otherwise. We don't go backwards. Yes, we change advice as we know better, but pretending it chops and changes so much in different directions that nobody can keep up is just pure bollocks, and is an excuse for ignoring best practice, nothing more.

Because they're ignorant.

When it comes to parenting it brings a lot of guilt and shame, especially to those who are more likely to fall into the trap of all the co-sleeping, cot bumper loving groups.

I agree with a previous poster that people are selfish, none of the decisions to put a child in an unsafe situation are for their own good, only for the good of the parent, so the parent can rest, so the parent doesn't have to watch them as closely, so the parent can get more sleep.

Also for many of these issues people are still under the illusion that 'mother' knows best, that it's somehow up for debate the actual facts of the situation and risks involved. There is no such thing as safe co-sleeping, no matter if you follow all the guidelines a child will never be safer sleeping with you than in a cot (in the same room up until 6 months) with their feet at the bottom and a tight fitting sheet up to their armpits. However many who do co-sleep feel the need to assert they know better than the evidence and facts around the issue.

As we have seen with COVID many people aren't mentally up for the task of weighing up risk and understanding science, same applies here. Yes everything we do has some risk, even formula feeding, but to sit there and say you've weighed up the risks and decided to co-sleep or use a cot bumper is just stupid.

It amuses me greatly that people still trot out the old "mum knows best" line...

Surely I'm not alone in realising, once home from the hospital with a newborn, that I actually knew sweet fa about newborns and what was actually wrong at any given time...

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland exactly. It's the same with medication.

There is no testing of any medication on pregnant woman and they all say they are to be avoided. But if you talk to an actual doctor or read up on it the risks can be classified to an extent. They also have to be balanced with quality of life. Is a woman with epilepsy or depression putting her child lastv by taking medication that could be risky? Or am I selfish taking antihistamines for my allergies (the one recommended by the doctor) that bring nothing but misery?

I think people that just avoid everything think it makes them better parents and look down on others. It's the ultimate shut down.