I can't find any evidence of published papers on these topics by these particular authors, though if someone else finds them I'd be interested to read them.
I will await, instead, the findings of this FSID research project, using the large longitudinal sample in the SouthWest which will allow for control groups. It is interesting that FSID do acknowledge that bedsharing has positive outcomes. It will be almost impossible to examine babies saved by bedsharing however.
In the light of this much better methodology, I am rather staggered about the headline grabbing pathology cases...
Bed-sharing and room-sharing
Professor Peter Fleming from the University of Bristol will study the antecedents, short-term and long-term effects of bedsharing, room sharing or separate sleeping by mothers and infants in the ALSPAC cohort.
Mother-baby bedsharing is associated with an increased risk of unexpected infant death, particularly for mothers who smoke or drink alcohol, but little is known of the potential beneficial effects of bedsharing, either in the short-term (e.g. promoting breastfeeding) or the longer-term (behavioural problems during childhood and predisposition to obesity), or of any other potential adverse effects.
ALSPAC has collected unique information on health, growth, development, medical, environmental, social and behavioural factors from pregnancy to the present, in a cohort of 14,000 children born in 1991-2 and their families. Detailed information has been collected on sleep patterns, sleep duration, sleep environment and problems, in the children and their parents.
Preliminary analysis of these ALSPAC data on sleep in infancy and childhood shows that in the first 6 months 33-70% infants shared a bedroom with their mother, and routine mother-baby bedsharing for night time sleep was common throughout infancy and early childhood, varying between 9% and 18%.
Sleep patterns and duration are affected by many factors (e.g. birthweight, breastfeeding, gender), and short sleep duration in infancy is associated with obesity in later childhood. Breastfeeding, despite its association with shorter sleep duration, may offer some protection against later obesity. This is of great potential importance in understanding the current obesity epidemic in children and adults since childhood obesity tracks into adulthood.
The research will use sophisticated statistical modelling techniques to analyse the longitudinal data collected from ALSPAC children and families, to identify factors contributing to parents? choices about bedsharing in infancy, together with any immediate or long term adverse consequences or benefits of bedsharing, room sharing or separate sleeping, for both children and mothers.
The large size and completeness of the data from the ALSPAC cohort will allow the researchers to take account of multiple confounding factors and look carefully at the direction and nature of interactions between common infant care practices (e.g. bed-sharing and breastfeeding).