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!

Thank you for posting that JulesJules, very enlightening. I expect that today the FSID published a press release about the research, hence the flurry of dramatic stories.

It never ceases to amaze me the way that people defend co-sleeping in a way they would never defend other guidelines ie putting baby in own room/early weaning (from four months) etc.

Iirc sids advice has for a long time been that the safest place for babies is in their own cot, in their parents' room.

People are often quick to judge someone who puts babies in own rooms/lets them sleep on their tummies for instance, yet if co-sleeping is called into question people seem determined to defend it.

I find it bizarre.

I don't blame anyone for their child's death from SIDS WannaBe.

I object to scaremongering from organisations that have an agenda. If I hadn't co-slept I could quite possibly have smothered my DS by falling asleep on him sitting in a chair to feed. And that would have been recorded as a SIDS death as the result of co-sleeping. But it wouldn't have been true.

I agree with SGM and Scaryspicemonster- there seems to be a cross-over between suffocation and SIDS. I would have thought they were two seperate things (but equally tragic).

Also, a lot of the 'advice' about avoiding SIDS seems to me to also apply to avoiding suffocation?? Obviously advice about avoiding both is important but I think it causes some confusion.

I wonder if it was somehow possible to remove the deaths caused by suffocation from the data we might see a different pattern emerging regarding the risk factors for SIDS.

nobody is saying people should be blamed for the death of their baby.

But this study is not talking about deaths where babies are smothered - it is referring to unexplained deaths. And 50% of unexplained deaths occur while co-sleeping Surely that is relevant, even if "well I did it and my children are all fine." That's not much consollation to the 50% of parents whose children have died while co-sleeping is it?

Not sure exactly what factors are taken into account when doing these studies, i.e. of the other 50%, were they all in cots? or were some in buggies/carseats/bouncy chairs etc, did the parents smoke, was the baby sleeping on their tummy/side, in their own room - that sort of thing.

Because you have to assume that of the 50% of babies that were not co-sleeping, some of those will have been in other risk categories ie in own room/sleeping on front/smoking parents...

In which case, it can be assumed that of all babies who die unexplained deaths, by far the majority were co-sleeping, which makes the risks infinitely higher than anything else.

It is also undoubtedly safest for your child never to travel in a car, but strangely enough parents are not usually made to feel guilty for taking their children in a car if there's a car crash, because it's such an ingrained part of life. Instead what we are advised to do is take sensible precautions, using appropriate car seats etc. I think people would just like the same respect when it comes to co-sleeping. Most of us do it at some point, whether we mean to or not, and what would be most useful is advice on how to do it as safely as possible.

Yes - Bramshott has hit the nail on the head with the car travel comparison.

The reason people defend it so much is because some people strongly believe that co-sleeping is as safe as cot sleeping or even safer and has many benefits, the most obvious of which is the breastfeeding mother can feed in her sleep, which means she is less likely to suffer from sleep deprivation and breastfeeding is more likely to be successful. One of the "advantages" of bottle feeding is often toted as that Dad can share the night feeds - if you co-sleep and breastfeed, nobody has to get up!

I find it hard to see what 'agenda' the FSID could have, other than trying to save babies and prevent families from experiencing such an awful tragedy.
I have a lot of respect for FSID as an organisation. My sister died of SIDS 30 years ago (not as a result of bedsharing), and it is such a horrendous thing for a family to experience as I'm sure you can all imagine. I agree that there is a fine line between 'demonising' parents (e.g. my mother put sister to sleep on stomach as was the guidance then) and providing good advice which will hopefully prevent many future incidents.
BTW, the guy on the BBC from FSID did NOT say that babies were safest in cots, wherever those cots may be, he said they were safest in cots immediately next to the mothers bed.
If you co-sleep (I have only done so once or twice) then that is your choice. Like everything else there is to worry about, you must make your own informed choice and live with it. However, please do not slate the FSID for doing what they are there to do, which is to prevent as many deaths as possible.

Also Wannabe, no that is not correct. Imagine you have 10 children who were all seriously injured in car accidents on a particular day. 7 of those children were travelling in car seats. 3 were not. So most children who were injured were travelling in car seats - that does not make travelling in car seats more dangerous than not using them. You need to know the percentage of children who usually travel in car seats - so if we take a larger sample, say 50 children were involved in car accidents that day, including the 10 who were seriously injured, and say that 5 of those 50 children were not in car seats.

So with these statistics, 7 out of 45 children in car seats were injured that day - that's about 15% of children travelling in car seats.

However 3 of the 5 children not travelling in car seats were injured on that day, which is 60% of the children who were not in car seats.

So you need to know how many babies co-sleep and how many babies die while co-sleeping to know the risk. Unfortunately nobody ever seems to know this number.

My data on car seat/non car seat accidents is made up for illustrative purposes by the way.

It was discussed on Jeremy Vine on Radio 2 today, the FSID woman guest speaker said that co-sleeping increased the risk.

I wrote a long post and then the site went down and I lost it.

It went something like this though:
If you look at that research, 60% of the children who died from SIDS had mothers who smoked in pregnancy vs 14% of the control group. Compare that to the 54% of children who died whose parents co-slept vs 20% of the control group. So why isn't the FSID highlighting the dangers of smoking in pregnancy if they are interested in risk prevention? That's why I'm saying they have an agenda.

The report's authors say that co-sleeping in itself isn't intrinsically dangerous but that are a number of risk factors which, when combined, with co-sleeping, dramatically increase the risks of SIDS. That's what the FSID should be reporting.

Bramshott - why do you think co-sleepers are being made to feel guilty? I have certainly bf my DCs when I have been very tired, and I don't feel GUILTY about it. I just take on board the FSID advice and go with it as I see fit. E.g. the FSID advice is to have babies in the room with you until 6months. I did this with DD, but DS just couldn't seem to settle in the moses basket and was far to big for it by 4.5months so went in his own room then (and slept brilliantly there). I went against FSID guidance, but I didn't for one minute wish I hadn't been made aware of the guidance just so I wouldn't feel guilty. We all have minds of our own!

Scary - undoubtably the media like short 'soundbites', and this is probably why FSID appear to be only focussing on one risk factor. I have certainly heard plenty about the dangers of smoking during pregnancy and with young children, so maybe they feel that the smoking issue has been well covered previously.

If 17% of deaths occurred whilst on the sofa.

31% where alcohol and drugs were involved.

That means only 2% were true co-sleepers.
If the other 50% were in their cots then it is clear co-sleeping, correctly, is far far safer!!

Actually what I find really odd about this is that FSID advised caution when this research was first published. But weirdly they sponsored it. And now somehow they have decided exactly the same research (the results of which haven't changed as far as I can tell from the original article that JulesJules linked to) supports their view that co-sleeping is very dangerous.

Undercovermutha - I was responding to what several posters who have been in this terrible position have said (mostly on the other thread on this today), which is that if their baby has died in their beds, they have been told it was because they have co-slept. Or at least it has been implied with phrases like "we don't encourage co-sleeping", when actually no-one knows whether that baby would have died anyway, whether it was in bed, or in a cot.

I've found this on the La Leche League website. I'm not sure when it was written, I haven't looked closely yet.

I'm a mum of a 2year old and wondered if any of the more experienced mums on here can answer two questions I have in respect of this:-

1. I never slept with my baby because I was fearful of her overheating what with the quilts and pillows etc, if you do/did co sleep how did you avoid this as it always seemed risky to me

1. Guidelines state that to lower the risk baby should be in the parents bedroom in its own cot for the first six months - how does this diminish the risk, to put it bluntly if god forbid your child is going to die of cot death how does it make a difference if it's in the parents or its own room? Or am I missing something?

Thanks

It's all sooooo confusing. All very well to say don't ever co-sleep but what about those times when you are breastfeeding and you just nod off! Surely safer to sleep as co-sleepers than risk nodding off on the sofa!

I think FSID, like the gov on alcohol in pregnancy, and saying never to co-sleep as to try and spell out the variations to people would create too much confusion.

Someone needs to do research into breastfeeding and co-sleeping. or perhaps they have!

I watched an expert this morning on BBC news state that no one should ever cosleep with a baby ever.

Found it very interesting, cots for babies have only been around for about 150 years before that babies always slept with their mothers and in many cultures around the world still do. It is the biological norm for a young baby to sleep close to it's mother and BF frequently during the night.

We have evolved this way, it kept babies from rolling away and being snatched by predators at night, sleeping next to it's mother has been proven to help the baby remember to breathe (hence the 6 month baby in room thing) and frequent BFing ensured the baby was well nourished.

It's only when modern factors such as smoking, drinking, drugs etc have been brought into the equation that it is seen as dangerous.

I've commented considerably on the other long thread on this, but I'm very suspicious of FSID. Their biggest campaign was based on a poorly conducted survey that was funded by the CPSC and the Juvenile Product Manufacturers Association who represent the manufacturers of cots, infant bedding and accessories. The advice to give the baby a dummy at night came from a study part-funded by MAM.

Dangerously flawed and biased information being misinterpreted to demonise parents who are doing a perfectly normal thing.

Safe bedsharing has many benefits. There is evidence it helps to regulate the baby's temperature, breathing and heartbeat patterns. It promotes prolactin response in mothers and an unstressed, relaxed stance in infants and supports the breastfeeding relationship.

It is fascinating to read the Telegraph article that Jules posted and see just how differently these new statistics (which don't really tell us anything we didn't already know) are being interpreted... in that the main factors in SIDS risk aren't bedsharing, but known risky behaviours such as alcohol, drugs etc.

You can't even compare overtired/drunken crashing on the sofa to planned bedsharing, yet all of FSID's studies lump them in together!

So I just read this from Professor Helen Ball, Anthropologist, Durham University:

"This is a baby care issue caught between two public helath objectives, both aimed at preserving infant health and well-being - one being breastfeeding promotion, the other prevention of accidental death and SIDS."

1. Parent-baby sleep is the evolutionary norm
2. About half UK parents bedshare in the first month of a baby's life.
3. Bedsharing and bf are very closely linked and doing it helps breastfeeding in terms of supply and duration.
4. Increased risks with bedsharing appear when the following factors are present

-parents smoke -parents consume alcohol -parents consume drugs -parents sleep with babies on the sofa 4.The benefits and risks of bedsharing should take into account who is doing the sharing, where they are doing it, how they are doing it and they way bed-sharing takes place.

1. And this is the bit the meejah don't like. There is no simple message or "one size fits all" - parents need clear balanced information in order to make a decision.

I co-slept with #2 and found it a godsend in terms of not having to move far for those night feeds. She thrived and my milk supply was fantastic. There is evidence in her research to suggest that bed sharing can help to establish and maintain a good milk supply which is something any mother planning to bf should be aware of.