co sleeping

[lou4791]

Hi Ladies,
Maybe this thread should go into 'parenting', but it is very relevant to breastfeeding.
My baby is 3 weeks old and breastfeeding well. He sleeps in our bed at night, on my side, with a cot side in place, covered by his own blanket rather than our duvet. When he wakes to feed, I give him the breast, and then I often drift back off to sleep.
I did the same 12 years ago with my other son, and this set up seemed to work well for both of us.
However, on bbc news this morning, a paediatrician was being interviewed who stated that babies should never bed share as he said it greatly increases the risk of cot death. He said that half of all cot deaths were linked to co sleeping, although did also say that alcohol and sleeping with babies on the sofa played a part, which I already knew and avoid. Surely this means that the other half of cot deaths, babies were in their cots?
What are other mums views on this?

Lou x

There are at least two other threads on this, OP.
here and here

They have included falling asleep on sofas,and use of alcohol and drugs in with co sleeping and called it all bedsharing.

www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/339/oct13_1/b3666

Whole study is here.

There is no evidence as far as I can see from the study that non-smoking, non-drinking, non-drug using parents need to be advised to stop co-sleeping in a bed, but someone who can understand stats better than me should look at it. In fact, the study acknowledges that advice to all parents not to co-sleep anywhere anyhow may do some harm. Here is an extract from the conclusion to the study

"The safest place for an infant to sleep is in a cot beside the parents? bed. Based on evidence from research into SIDS it is questionable whether advice to avoid bed sharing is generalisable and whether such a simplistic approach would do no harm. Parents of young infants need to feed them during the night, sometimes several times, and if we demonise the parents? bed we may be in danger of the sofa being chosen. A better approach may be to warn parents of the specific circumstances that put infants at risk. Parents need to be advised never to put themselves in a situation where they might fall asleep with a young infant on a sofa. Parents also need to be reminded that they should never cosleep with an infant in any environment if they have consumed alcohol or drugs."

Interestingly, a completely different media spin was put on this research when it was previously reported here

as point of interest, bought the NCT book of sleep fromtheir online shop, arrived this morning. Plenty of interesting stuff about co-sleeping, worth a read

(sadly co-sleeping doesn't work for me, I just can't sleep, not one of the lucky ones who nods off when feeding lying down either!!)