New guidelines out - offer newborns a dummy

[uberalice]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6229516.stm

Would breastfeeding them to sleep work as well?

I would have thought not as they are now recommending dummies for bf babies (from 1m when bf is supposedly established - my arse) - which is the first time I have ever seen anything suggest giving a dummy to a bf baby

The paed in the hospital guided newborn dd's thumb into her mouth when she was giving her her final check up before leaving. dd had already found her thumb the nigt before and was more than happy to be shown it was still there the next day.

At 2 she's still a thumb sucker at bedtime and I have no intention of stopping her, just saving up for orthodontic treatment instead - makes for a more peaceful night's sleep.

#my mum had a real poblem with suckin gher thumb. Her parent tried everything to make her stop. They even had some dental contraption custom made o keep her from putting her thumb in her mouth in her sleep. She rolled over the first night and broke it. This as in the early 1940's so I bet it was pretty expensive. Anyway, year later the dentist told her had she not sucked her thumb she would have needed braces. So, it can go either way.

I bet it's really bf to sleep that makes a difference (what's so natural about a dummy after all?) but they didn't bother running studies on that cos it's easier to run a study on dummy usage, or are sponsored by manufacturers or something sinister like that

when dd finishes bf and pulls off when asleep, she is still making sucking motions with her mouth, a bit like she is sucking on a dummy.
I 100% refuse to believe it is necessary to use a dummy only to achieve this cut in cot deaths.

oh there we go, just clicked on fsid link to check out story and is sponsored by mam, ads all over the place etc. no money to be made out of bf advice is there?

The studies were not sponsered by manufacturers. It is not just one study. It is lots of studies and, as I understand it, has in the first instance come of someone spotting that there was a lower instance of dummy use in SID cases. Which lead to further studies.

lol - ds kept losing it and never really like it. He found his thumb instead

your baby is apparently also at higher risk of sids if you usually use a dummy but then forget, if I understook correctly (quite possibly not as not v scientific)
and apparently the 90% thing is not as clear cut www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/332/7534/178-a
gosh, wonder why this has got under my skin so much ??

agree with morocco. the best defense against cot death is breastfeeding and co-sleeping.

not the sort of thing most people want to hear or believe, but there it is.

Which is why I stuck to the phrase "as much as 90%"...which in my books means up to 90%.

And yes I think that if your baby usually uses a dummy and you take it away the risk of cot death is actually increased.

As I said I think the important thing on this one (unlike other 'scientific revelations' that get picked on by the press) is that the data is the result of pulling together lots of independent studies. As I understand it.