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

But muffle, 2nd-hand cots are implicated in SIDS too. And I can never make out how you can feed on both sides with a side-cot. NB: my children are 9 and 14, and both coslept

Abby, I think the idea is to take the baby out of the side cot, feed him/her and then put him back in the side cot when finished. I think. I didn't have one, we just used the bed but DH obligingly went off to the spare room (so he could get his sleep)

Is it really the cot or just the mattress? I thought the advice was to get a new mattress for each baby, but it's OK to re-use the wooden frame of the cot. Do please correct me if I'm wrong as this thread is probably now a place to get useful advice from.

With the side cot thing, I actually had a baby hammock which was next to the bed. I had to get DS out of it as it was kind of enclosed, so I would sit up in bed, get him out, feed him and put him back. I would do the same with an open side cot - feed sitting up in bed - to reduce the risk of rolling over and falling asleep.

I know that's a bit different from the kind of cosleeping where you are in the same bed and can feed all night without really waking up. So that is another option but one I would rather not do really. I would just be worried about being too tired.

muffle, it's each to their own - I was a huge advocate of "Baby in their own bed/cot/basket" before I had one that had difficulties feeding, then I realised that the risks to him were much higher (in different ways) if I tried to feed sitting up anywhere, so we sort of fell into co-sleeping - but as I said, I have always slept with my arm out above his head, so I couldn't roll onto him if I tried because it would dislocate my shoulder! I am not a great wriggler in bed though, I would think it would be harder if one was.

And I'm pretty sure it's a new mattress for each baby too.

We have a side-car arrangement too, Muffle, and I love it. It makes the bed seem that bit bigger and means that dd has her own space (although admittedly she does sleep as close to me as possible!) I've also mastered the art of feeding from both sides without having to move dd!

I hate these studies; they worry me and fuel the fire of those around me who have always been convinced that I'm doing wrong by my children by co-sleeping. I agree it's very unhelpful to offer blanket 'no co-sleeping' advice. Neither of my babies would settle in moses basket, and we really tried. For us, co-sleeping meant that we, and baby, got restful sleep. At the time I had my ds (3 years ago) the hospital actually advised me to put him in bed with me, and they told me all the information with regards to doing it safely.

(As an aside, Muffle I love your name - my ds calls muffins 'muffles'!)

There are no hard and fast rules - babies sleep under duvets or on pillows and survive. Others sleep in smoky rooms. Or regularly with a dozing mother on a sofa. Some sleep in hats or baby nests. Some sleep in overheated rooms.

And survive.

And others follow all the rules - no smoking, co sleeping, sofa, duvet, cool bedroom temperature, no risk factors whatsoever.

And die.

One of the few comforts I have as regards losing my daughter is that I do believe I did all I could. And yet she died.

If I had read some of the proferred advice, and chosen not to follow it, and she had died, well, words fail me......

ggglimpopo, gardeningmum - I am so sorry for your loss

This kind of article is irresponsible because, as well as tormenting grieving parents, such non-evidence advice might increase the number of deaths from SIDS by making breastfeeding even harder. In hospital, I was not permitted to feed my baby lying down "because of SIDS". This was very recently and the hospital guidelines had apparantly changed.

non-evidence based advice

i read in one of the million of books on sids that i have read, that you will always find a way to feel "guilty" at a child dying. i regret terribly that she died in our bed, yet i know we didnt roll on her, suffocate her, have duvet/pillows anywhere near her.
i have read about many parents guilt that their child died alone in a cot, so its lose-lose.
i dont blame FSID for printing this article at all, if it prevents just one child dying, its worth it. every morning my 1st thought is that somewhere in this country, theres a family waking up to find their child wont wake and are about to go through the horrors we have. thats the odds, 1 a day roughly

ggglimpopo, so sorry for your loss, i hope things are working out for you

I am so sorry to continue raising questions with parents who are grieving and I really hope this is taken in the spirit it is meant. But if the evidence isn't conclusive (and it clearly isn't, especially this latest report from pathologists) then we don't actually know whether the advice might not 'prevent just one more baby from dying'. Without the evidence properly assessed, it may yet 'cause' one more baby to die. No-one does know the potential protective effect of co-sleeping because it is virtually impossible to find out empirically. The studies do not show how many babies died as a result of parents not co-sleeping and ending up asleep on the sofa by mistake.

but they cant assess the evidence. nobody can predict which child will die. i just dont think its worth the risk thats all. thats why i didnt co-sleep with my sons, kept the room at the recommended temperature, they slept in grobags, never let them sleep on their fronts. i needed to be sure that god forbid, i lost another baby, i had absolutely nothing to feel guilty about.
to be honest, every tine i read a co-sleeping thread, i know i should just log off my computer. didnt help that my SIL co-slept with her son when she stayed at my house, i could of screamed

gardeningmum

I do appreciate how such a thing is not at all worth the risk for you and how your experiences lead you to that view. Anyone in your position would no doubt be the same, why take any apparent risk.

That is why more research is needed and why I applaud the FSID for supporting it. But the standards of evidence - which really have to be neutral and dispassionate and meeting scientific criteria - ought to be maintained.

I am sure this debate must be horrendous for you though and parents in your position and I'm sorry for that.

just spoke to my dd who lost her son to cot death 2006,she also had email ,asked how she felt ,if it saves one family going through what we have in last two years then its worth it,
ggg thinking of you ,tomorrow will be doing mile in memory tomorrow, our youngest grandaughter is walking it for the first time in memory of all our precious angels and to raise money for more research in the hope one day it stops.

I found that 'there was 3 in a bed' ad offensive too. a nasty gimmick.

i wonder how FSIDS responds to the point that babies die in cots because they do not co-sleep.

foxy, sorry but i found your last comment a little upsetting. more babies die in a bed than a cot. no baby dies because they dont co-sleep otherwise there would be more deaths, as more babies sleep in a cot/basket than their parents bed.
FSIDS do a great job for families like myself. trust me, i dont think i would be here now without them.
we raised £7000 following the death of our daughter, all went towards monitors that siblings following a SID can have. both my sons had a monitor, permanantly attached to them for 3 months, then in the pram,car and cot after that.
my son did stop breathing at one stage, and this monitor saved his life!
hazygirl...good luck to you and your family tomorrow, hope it stays dry for you

I'm sorry again to be all picky about the details of the research in this context and I feel uncomfortable about making people upset in this way, but I don't understand your point about more babies dying in a bed than a cot. I don't think this latest research suggests that, and from what I remember of previous research, that isn't shown either in other studies. Even if it did demonstrate that out of the babies who died of SIDS, more of them died while in a bed, it still wouldn't indicate that being in the bed were more of a risk than being in a cot.

In this report for example it indicates that 85 babies who died were co-sleeping. That includes those co-sleeping on a sofa or chair. The absolute figure for babies who died presumably in a cot must have been higher than those in a bed - unless I am missing something.

But even if it were the other way around, it still wouldn't tell us very much. The numbers are too small to be a statistically robust piece of evidence, which means we can't say anything about the correlation between bedsharing and SIDS, let alone whether bedsharing actually causes SIDS.

I know there is better research on this which does indicate that bedsharing is a risk if other factors (like smoking, drinking etc) are involved, and indeed the small print of the advert says that too. But the objections people are raising here are about the misleading implication of the key message and the apparent slackness of the FSID about putting out this message on the basis of poorly formulated research.

Surely if you have an objection to the wording or feel that the advice is being misrepresented by fsids, you should be contacting them about it?

I will do, but the OP asked what we thought about it. I am not seeking to make people's lives harder or sadder by contesting the interpretation, but since many people will read this thread also, worried about SIDS, I think it is important that the issues are discussed on such a forum as this.

I am sorry for your loss gardeningmum.

I find it hard to let the statistics put forward by the FSIDS stand without dispute as they are doing a disservice to all parents by not honestly discussing the research that is out there.

They have put forward some sensational headlines in order to raise funds and in the process, scare parents who deserve to have unbiased information about SIDS.

I would hate to think that the loss of babies means that we cannot discuss the research available for all to read for fear of further pain to already grieving parents. Information which can save other parents the same heart ache.

FWIW, in my previous post, I talked about co-sleeping which is defined as sharing a room with parents.

Bed-sharing is a form of co-sleeping.

Lumping bedsharing with room-sharing, sofa sleeping, chair sleeping does no one any favours.

The FSIDS needs to make honest statements based on robust research in order to gain my respect. I understand that they need money to support parents who already are grieving but blackmailing me is just not going to let me reach into my pocket.

It ought to put forward information that is out there about what is safe bedsharing and when it is not safe to bed share, for example.

Just because they scare monger won't make the practice die out. It is a deeply rooted cultural practice in some segments of the population with benefits for mothers and babies. It needs to acknowledge that even if they consider it risky behaviour, it won't go away.

When babies die in cots because they were strangled or otherwise suffocated, they look for ways to make cots safer. When babies die in the beds of the parents they tell people 'don't sleep with your baby'.

Excellent post, Foxy.

This is so difficult because it's such an emotive and awful issue. No-one wants to criticise a charity who are obviously doing a lot to support grieving families.

These stats and studies are so muddied and based on partial figures, it's like trying to compare apples and oranges.

There is also a lot of corporate power involved who are muddying the stats even further. In the USA, the JPMA (representing manufacturers of cots and other products) have pushed hard against bedsharing. Sadly, it is this cynical - they are trying to promote their product, just as formula manufacturers and cigarette manufacturers will.

What we need to know is:

How many babies sleep in cots (safely)
How many babies bedshare in 'safe circumstances'

What proportion of babies in each circumstance die suddenly.

Of course it's near impossible to measure this perfectly, but there's a very, very good attempt at analysing American stats (very similar to the UK's) right here by Tina Kimmel.

James McKenna also has a great article at the same site which discusses many of the benefits to the baby of cosleeping.

His much longer article here has a lot more referencing as to how the CPSC in the US have twisted statistics on bedsharing (by concentrating on very poor areas for example) and how cosleeping in the same room at the very least actually halves the risk of SIDS.

"85 out of 173 babies in London area were found in bed or sofa"
Logically, you would think that they should be demanding that cots be banned as 88 out of 173 babies who suffered SIDS were in cots at the time.
This is such an emotive subject, my heart goes out to any family who has been touched by SIDS.

It seems that the numbers are still quite small, would be interested to see how many of the co-sleep deaths followed co-sleeping advice to the letter. I loved our beside cot, best of both worlds imo, I would use it again next time. It seems still a large number of cot deaths were babies that didn't co-sleep, how are they explained?

Has anyone had any response from FSID?

Co-sleeping has been the cultural and biological norm for for breastfed babies since the dawn of time and FSIDS really need to acknowledge this. Personally I think that any recommendations that don't acknowledge the very different behaviours and needs of ff and bf mother/baby pairs are profoundly unhelpful, and probably dangerous. I've read that 60% of parents sleep with their baby in their bed at some point in the first few months. Every breastfeeding mother that I know has done it at some point, and every parent I know who has had to care for a poorly baby has also done it. I haven't read the research that the FSID's recommendations are based on; I would be very interested to know if (and how) it controls for illness. I suspect an unusually high number of babies who die in the parental bed have ended up there because minor infections have resulted in them being too unsettled to settle in their cots. And of course this would be implicated in SIDS because of issues relating to overheating.