Co-Sleeping - Apparently "especially dangerous" with babies less than three months

[RockinSockBunnies]

Just came across this online. Whilst I appreciate the dangers of drinking/taking drugs and co-sleeping, surely it's somewhat draconian to condemn all parents that choose to co-sleep with babies less than three months?

In addition, the death of the sixteen-month baby seems odd. Most babies this age are crawling if not walking and unlikely to be rolled upon by someone who has had a 'moderate' amount to drink.

These articles make me really cross . I co-slept with DD from birth, read numerous books on the subject whilst pregnant and consulted as many people about it as possible. I don't appreciate having my decision labelled 'especially dangerous'.

300 healthy babies die a year unexpectedly, 270 are in their cot, 30 are elsewhere.

Surey logically the biggest risk of co-sleeping leading to SID is over heating because we have duvets, pillows, central heating etc etc & what we need is education at how to co-sleep safely?

I didn't even room share with mine because I can't sleep with them in the room but 100% co-sleeping is "natural" and what instinctively we should be doing. What are bedrooms, beds & sleeping practices in Japan/China why is it safer there than here.

I wonder if some of the safety of co-sleeping in other countries relates to three issues,

1)Breastfeeding being more prevalent
2)Alcohol being less prevalent/socially acceptable for mothers to drink??
3)Increased daytime support for new mothers, enabling them to rest more so reducing the "excessive tiredness" which I think most mothers in the UK feel is inevitable.

I argue these points but I'm still not sure what I'll do if I have another dc. I suspect that I will bedshare at times but I do not think that I will feel easy about doing so.

I'm so glad my babies are older now. I co-slept with all of mine because it was the best way for get sleep. And it felt right. It would be horrible to be harangued like that for something that was so clearly right for us.

ladidadi, you're probably better at filtering through those slides than I... Can you pull out for us what the final final risk factors are, with the different interactions? I'm finding it difficult to work out whether it's more risky to be a co-sleeper, a smoker or what...

And I don't think there is anything in the data about the impact of BF or not (or is there?)

I still took the choice to do so, because I believed the risk to be small enough not to worry me, and because I felt confident in my own sleep patterns/bed arrangments. For some women they will feel the risk too high but I would not want that decision to be made from scare-mongering opinion (the press I mean, not ladidadi)

My brief reading is that there IS a slightly higher independent risk from co-sleeping. On the other hand, I just don't accept the interpretation of that as 'dangerous'.

my grandson died of sudden infant december 2006,three months old nearly ,my dd partner had him on his shoulder ,my dd went downstairs to make jayden a bottle,he was asleep on his dads shoulder in the space of making a bottle and dd coming back upstairs he went to sleep forever,
emergency services came ,tried so hard to bring him back ,wonderful people,then the police came,not good why wasnt he asleep in cot ,removed bed mattress ,bedding everything.
at the inquest ten month later we were told he would have been a classic cot death if he had been in cot,because he wasnt is sudden infant death.
its just gone two years since he died and we have a wonderful granddaughter again,his sister and we have followed everyguide line fsid have said,their support has been amazing without them and mumsnet i would not have survived.

"It does not matter (statistically) if 90% of SIDS take place in a cot, what matters is the proportion of those babies who co-sleep ( can i add "while following safe co-sleeping guidelines" ) who die of SIDS compared with those who sleep in a cot."

dr jack mckenna has done so, based on the same 10 year period in which the AAP based it's rather anti-co-sleeping advice on and which fsids and the nhs bases its advice.

Hazy - am so incredibly sorry! Your grandson would be about the same age as my DD

D you have those stats foxy as I'd love to see them, not to find fault but to find reassurance in what I suspect will still be my choice next time.

Increased daytime support for new mothers, enabling them to rest more so reducing the "excessive tiredness" which I think most mothers in the UK feel is inevitable.

i suffered immensely from excessive tiredness because i was being a 'good mum' as per fsid and not cosleeping.

now i cosleep. recently was alone with a 2wk old and 3.5 yo in a full leg cast for 7 weeks. i have 1 aunt in the uk who lives a 7 hr drive away. cosleeping saved my hide as well as my sanity. no 'over tiredness' at all.

I always used to find it funny when people tried to tease me about lack of sleep. Not a problem here. Even when she wasn't in our bed (which wasn't often) her dad would get her up then he could go back to sleep when he got back in and I didn't have to wake up fully either.

I think one risk factor that's not often discussed is co-sleeping on a casual basis, taking the child in occasionally. If you're not used to the child being there you are at greater risk of rolling on them. Of the children that have died in a parents bed, other than the unexplained, I wonder how many had followed the guidelines, including the one I've just mentioned, and were breastfeeding?

in defense of maya's mother he discusses the flaws in the study here and breaks down the numbers to expose the flaws.

i've missed some of this thread but wanted to ask a question:

Is there an increased risk of SIDS if the parent(s) are smokers but the baby sleeps in a cot?

is it just riskier if you co-sleep?

Thanks foxy.

There is definitely an increased risk of SIDS if a parent smokes and the baby sleeps in a cot but the risk is higher if parents smoke and co-sleep.

if the mother smoked in pg (and after delivery) i believe there is still an increased risk of sids irregardless of where the baby sleeps.

but

it is reduced if he sleeps in a cot beside the adult bed

if either parents smoke, a cocktail of noxious chemicals cling to any clothes and their skin which they take to the bed thereby making the bed environment unsafe for the baby..

LaDiDaDi...but than alcohol and smoking make bed sharing an unsafe option anyway, and that is the difference, tehre is safe bedsharing and then there is unsafe one...
And of course, there are other rules to "obey" like bedding used, etc....!
Forinstance what I used to do when sleeping wiht a Baby in Bed is, that they would be on top of my duvet and only covered in a blanket.... !

As for the point of tiredness...you see the whole bed sharing is all about avoiding over tiredness...whilst one will always be tired to some extent....I would think if I had to get out of my bed umptiest times during the night, I would have been much more tired than by co-sleeping and boobfeeding on demand....I was always able to get back to sleep quickly, etc....

Also, isn't a high number of thos co-slept but died children that the parents were co-sleeping on a sofa, which is unsafe?

Well, I looked at teh slides...but to me they didn't make any sense...
but that is because I can't work out statistics, lol....

So, is the assumption than that most parents don't bed share, and therefor the population of Babies in their own cot is therefore bigger...and that is the reason why there will be a higher number of Babies dying in their own cot?

oh and hazygirl, I am so sorry to hear about your little grandson

the police and coroner questioned if anyone smoked near jayden ,it was brought up in court his dad smoked never near jayden,only outside ,made to feel guilty as if life after sids isnt bad enough.

that is terrible hazy....like you say, it is shocking and devestating enough when your Baby dies, without implications of blame....