Experts unite to warn parents of bedsharing dangers - new advice from FSID

[Caz10]

I apologise whole-heartedly if this topic upsets anyone, I really don't mean to. I am just curious to as to people's views on this.

I get the FSID email and this was their headline article.

I understand all the guidelines re if you are a smoker, been drinking etc, but this seeems to advise no co-sleeping AT ALL. I co-slept with my dd (now 18mths) quite a lot - I thought I would do so again if we had a dc2 - but that piece worries me a bit?

Just wondering what others thought?

It seems to contradict the advice coming from eg Unicef

Hmm. I co-slept with all three of mine.

I seem to remember that the advice at the time included 'don't co-sleep if you are tired'. Not at all sure what the people who wrote that thought was the normal state of play for a new mum actually was.

Needless to say I was always tired, had occasionally has a (single) glass of wine, don't smoke or take recreational drugs and was quite careful to keep my duvet off ds( 1,2 and 3) who all slept in a grobag.

I distinctly remember once waking up and ds not being there and panicing like mad - dh had heard him rouse and whisked him out of bed before I woke up. Otherwise, no problems that i recall...

Don't really understand this.

Out of 173 babies, 85 had been co-sleeping, 88 had been presumably sleeping on their own in a cot. That's less than half. Either you co-sleep or you don't. Therefore by these figures, surely it's safer to co-sleep?

Am I not undestanding this correctly?

Someone explain, as this keeps me awake at night (lying next to my 4mo).

grrr. written by a marketing dept and had a hastily added bit by joyce thing to try to redeem it.

waste of charitable funds.

That's the problem with this kind of sweeping alarmist stuff chegirl. It makes me really cross and totally undermines the rest of their sensible advice. Makes me want to be rebellious and ignore everything. I think they do parents a huge disservice by peddling this kind of pernicious nonsense.

I co-sleep with my 12 week old and this hs made me cry

Anyone worried about co-sleeping after reading this, you must read 'three in a bed' by deborah jackson. Wonderful book. Wish i had had it when my DS was born.

as someone whose grandson is probably included in the figures quoted as m cohen did pm on grandson and attended inquest if it saves one child and family going through this hell,its bloody worth itx

Ah fruitstick - im so sorry. follow the safe co-sleeping guidelines, get yourself that book i was on about, and someone else has already mentioned, and go and cuddle your baby xx

"But isnt the advice already do not cosleep if you have had anything to drink?"

Yes but some people don't regard one/two glasses of wine or one/two pints of beer as something to drink.
Some people don't regard a spliff as drugs.

Doea anyone know about the sleeping habits in Japan and why they don't have SID?

Hazygirl - im really sorry about your grandson.

im going to stop posting now. We all want what is best for our little ones, but that may be different things.

The japanese do have SIDS.

what about this?

refuted
www.geocities.com/issues_in_immunization/fearmongers/japan_sids.htm

I don't get it...

I thought SIDS was - effectively - unexplained. The doctors and coroners cannot identify what caused the babies' deaths.

So, in those 50% of cases where a baby was bedsharing, how could it be "proven" that smoking/drinking/weight, etc. (not that I condone those things) was the "cause" of death?

Moreover, how is it more dangerous to put your baby in bed with you, than to put it in a crib, if just as many babies die of SIDS in cribs? You could read the research the other way round: WARNING - 50$ of SIDS deaths occur in cribs! Cribs are dangerous!

I'm not being flippant, really. Just genuinely confused by the message here.

Thanks Libra, removed that worry for me.

But added some others!

Higher risk babies
Low birth weight - yes
male infant - yes
low maternal age - sadly not!
late order of birth in multiparity - DC2?
illegitimacy - sadly yes

To be honest I don't see anything new in the evidence stated in this article.

There's no sign that evidence has been collated and studied properly, just anecdotal accounts.

It really annoys me that co-sleeping is so emphasised as a factor for SIDS when smoking (whilst pregnant or around your baby) is such a huge factor and breastfeeding provides such great protection against it.

When I co-slept with my son I hadn't been smoking or drinking, he didn't sleep under a duvet/on a pillow/between me and my partner. He slept beside me in the crook of my arm on the outside of the bed. He was breastfed and in a non-smoking atmosphere day and night.

I can understand why they are saying NO CO-SLEEPING to stop people from doing it without thinking and putting their babies at risk but I really think they need to look at the priorities of their campaigns.

Me too Penthesileia, but it's more than 50% dying in cribs according to the biggest sample size of 173.

Still don't understand.

Well bugger me! Yet another reason to be grateful my baby days are over. I couldn't have functioned without co-sleeping.

Really interesting to hear people's thoughts.

Can anyone tell me about the drinking thing, again not being flippant but why is it bad, is it the rolling and squashing thing, or the slow response?

Also, I agree with Penthesileia. The piece could equally say:

Of 50 babies, 19 were NOT sharing a bed/sofa

Of 15 babies, 6 were NOT etc etc

Of 173 babies, 88 were NOT etc etc

Please take note of what seems like a minor detail but is very significant: 'babies in the bed or on the sofa...'

I woke up when my babies changed position, if they so much as breathed more loudly, or made any sound at all. DH didn't, but I did.

Hazygirl this is obviously a cause close to your heart and a very sensitive issue for you. Every time new research comes out and new therories emerge it must be very painful. I am so sorry for your terrible loss.

I cant help thinking that this advice may not work in the way its intended just because people tend to ignore things they regard as over the top.

Really hoping not to upset or offend by this but..

If a baby is rolled on in bed, would that not be picked up at post mortum as smothering, and therefore not be recorded as SIDS? As surely it is not an unexplained death iyswim.

And this is classic fearmongering using misunderstood risk statistics.

Of the 173 babies who had died, some had bed shared. A minority presumably since we really do need to unravel those who bed shared in a well managed situation without other risk factors, from those who had other risk factors AND those who were on a sofa.

And in addition to that, you might wish to ask how the stats might be interpreted in another way. 88 poor babies died in a bed or on a sofa. That is tragic and awful. Out of how many in total who bedshared? That is the true population figure, not the 173.

If it is, in reality, 88 (or say approx 30 if we discount those on the sofa) and the figure for bedsharers in total is I dunno 70,000 (no idea on this, but it's a lot more than 173) then you don't have a just-under 50% risk, you have a 0.1% risk...