Badly written story about SIDS and bed sharing - on the BBC!

[Northernlurker]

here

In one breath they say deaths are linked to bed sharing then acknwledge in the next that most deaths involve sleeping on a sofa which is NOT bed sharing.

And they report that bed sharing should not be 'demonised' but with a headline such as 'parents double the risks' I think that's quite rich!

It says bedsharing in 50% of cases - I assume that the the sofa incidents are included in the other 50%?

I don't think it reads that way. The implication to me is that they have counted the sofa deaths in that 50%.

Bedsharing mixed with alcohol and drugs is very risky, bedsharing in a safe way (no huge covers, baby not too hot, no smoking, drinking or taking drugs) is okay.

OK, looked at the research:

17% were sleeping on a sofa (which obviously means that a lot were in a bed.) 31% involved drugs or alcohol - although it doesn't say which % of bed and sofa incidents involved drugs etc.

www.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/339/oct13_1/b3666

I am really bloody cross with the FSID at the moment. They keep deliberately demonising bed sharing and implying it's dangerous. While they may think they're avoiding confusion by telling parents that all co-sleeping is high risk (much like the government's advice not to drink at all in pregnancy), IMO what it's doing is terrifying people unnecessarily.

At least they've dropped that vile, vile ad now which I complained about

when they said swaddling was a new risk factor did they mean when bed sharing or anytime?

When I co-slept I always took her out of her swaddle and put her in a grobag because one of my swaddling blankets had a warning on about increased risk of sids when co-sleeping with a swaddled baby.

Swaddling mention was not clear at all, and this needs to be explained because many people swaddle (I did) even if they don't co-sleep.

As someone who has co-slept with both children up to the age of two, I don't think they are in anymore danger than in a cot. When they are with you they never get to sleep so deeply that it could be dangerous, also from much experience I have learned that babies who are ill, or who have a temp do much much better co-sleeping.

Dont forget its doctors who told mothers to put babies on their tummies in the first place for fear of choking.

But starwhores - it's not safe. That's what my friend was doing!

All 3 of my children have slept in our bed from new born.

DH and I don't smoke or drink.

Its what feels right for us, I have worried far more on the few occasions the babies have slept in a cot then having them next to me.

That should ahve said "not always safe"

Obviously some parents do it and their babies are OK but the risk is just too high for me

But theres o solid medical reason for SIDs deaths, whos to say that the same tradgic outcome would not occour that night if the baby was in a cot?

Babies do die of SIDs in cots too.

In many cultures, families bed share as a norm and the risk of SIDS is extremely low. There is no direct correlation between co-sleeping in itself and SIDS. We badly need to understand what increases the risks but bed-sharing in itself is not dangerous.

Exactly SGM. I wonder if it is impossible to distinguish between suffocation and SIDS in a post-mortem in a very small baby for some reason. Just because of the times deaths presumably caused by suffocation (baby gets stuck between sofa cushions, parent rolls onto baby etc) are called SIDS.

Swaddling is an entirely different matter. Here are some different articles (from a quick google):

• "Another concern is that swaddling might increase the risk of cot death. Quite the opposite, according to research at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis in 2002, on 26 babies up to six months old. This found that swaddling may help to decrease the risk because it helps babies to sleep more soundly on their backs." (Oct 2005)
• "A study in Bristol found that one in four babies who died of cot death had been swaddled. Prof Fleming said: ?There is something here. I would not recommend swaddling as a practice because this is the second study to show there is a risk.? The earlier study ­suggested that swaddling could be dangerous because parents wrapped their babies in blankets that were too heavy, causing over-heating." (Oct 2009)

So which is true????

It's enough to made your head spin !

Did anyone see the feature on today's BBC Breakfast?? The man from the FSID (Richard Wilson I think) said categorically that you shouldn't ever sleep with your baby - and there were no other interviewees there to challenge him. Made me pretty esp since the Bristol research conclusion doesn't take such a hard line - this was not mentioned in the piece at all.

Yes, I heard this on radio 5 this morning and was . The prof bloke they had on said that by "bedsharing" they were including beds, sofas, when parents had taken alcohol or drugs or not, vs. being in a cot. So lumping lots of things together, which the presenters then repeatedly referred to as just bedsharing, which in most peoples minds means co-sleeping. But that is not what he said at all.

I feel very frustrated that something which is so useful and beneficial to so many is so often presented in the media with such confusing messages. I would co-sleep again very happily but that's as a mother of three. In the face of the message currently coming out I don't know how any first time parents find the confidence to do that.

I agree Northernlurker.
I also co-slept with both my DSs, I felt it was right and it made it much easier to breastfeed at night.
But it must be hard for anxious first time parents to co-sleep confidently with all the negativity in the press about it.

Did anyone watch about it on This Morning today?

There are several threads on this news item now. It is quite interesting to compare the way the research has been presented in the media today with the way the same research was presented a few months ago - see here - complete with a quote from Justine Mumsnet