Co sleeping and SIDS leaflet at doctors

[Rowanhart]

I was planning in co sleeping when our DD is born in three weeks.

I was at docs today waiting for whooping cough jab when saw a leaflet called Risks of co sleeping.

In it said that infant mortality due to co sleeping is high the area we live in and we should never co sleep.

Also had quotes from two mums whose babies had died due to co sleeping,

I thought it was recommended? Confused now but thinking co sleeping is a big no no...

5madthings: lets take your 50/50 split. Many more people put babies in cots than co-sleep. There are proportionally more babies that die in beds than cots. This is a fact.

In addition, people on here and elsewhere on MN routinely say co-sleeping done correctly carries no risks!

If you accept co-sleeping carries risks, it would be an irresponsible HV/doctor who advises co-sleeping. I'm happy with the 'if you must, here's the best way of doing it' style of advice. Some health profs clearly aren't happy even with this level of advice. Perhaps they think this will encourage co-sleeping?

Taking your train analogy thunk, I would suggest it was like having two trains. One which has passed all the h+s tests satisfactorily and the other which has a flaw. The flaw will result in death in rare cases. It is also a bit nicer to travel on. You know this but choose the nicer train anyway. Would you advise others to do the same? Would you down play the advice warning people not to travel on that train? Would you doubt the scientific evidence about the flaw because lots of other people travel on it and never died?

Oh girleifriend. I thought I was all alone for a moment .

No I am with you, think it is borderline irresponsible how often co-sleeping is suggested on here.

but many more people dont put babies in cots than co-sleep as others have said, in some countries 70% or more people co-sleep! and the rates of co-sleeping in this country are generaly under reported as people know it is frowned on! lots of people admit it online or if they know other people do it but often they keep it to themselves.

some people are saying it carries no risks, others are saying yes it is risky, here is what you can do to make it safer. this op has asked for information on co-sleeping i think it is safer to say you can do it and make it safer, rather than just say not to do it at all.

i think a hv/midwife who says it has risk but this is what you can do to make it safe is better than one that just says not to do it at all, its about making an informed choice.

there isnt enough evidence for a blanket ban.

not safe, i meant safeR!

I have co-slept with all of mine (3) because otherwise no-one would have got any sleep and I could not cope. So, it really came about out of necessity, but actually I strongly believe it is a natural and lovely way for little babies to sleep andthat you can do it safely. Here are my safe co-sleeping strategies:

• I have a bedside cot so the baby is in that when they have fed from that side and it means the baby cannot get pushed up against a wall or a bed-side.

• We only use a sheet and blankets on our bed so there is no duvet to smother the baby. It is easy to cover the baby independently with sheets/blankets.

This, imo, is much much safer than curling up on a sofa in the night feeding a baby and accidentally falling asleep.... Human beings have been sleeping with their babies for millenia - there is a safe way to do this and imo it is a lovely experience for both mums and babies.

The studies being referred to are not from third world countries. They are from the UK and other western countries where cot sleeping in the norm! For cot sleeping to be riskier with your 50/50 figure, then the majority of people must co-sleep for the proportion of deaths in cots to be larger than co-sleeping. I don't think many people believe it is more popular than cots in the west.

i think it is safer to say you can do it and make it safer, rather than just say not to do it at all THis can only betrue if you believe safe co-sleeping is safer than cot sleeping. The scientific concensus (at the moment) does not agree. Should they advise safe co-sleeping believing it to be riskier?

the unicef and the WHO both believe it is better to give information on safe co-sleeping guildlines and studies in australia (not a third world country) show that up to 80% of parents co-sleep at some point, they also provide safe co-sleeping guildines.

cot sleeping is not necessarily the norm in the uk, particularly among some groups of certain ethnic origin. it is far better to promote safe co-sleeping guildlines, fine to say that we recomend cot sleeping but better to make sure those that choose not to use a cot do so safely, surely that makes sense?

unicef and the nct do not support blanket recomendations that co-sleeping is unsafe and have released a joint report saying that.

the natural child project also provides plenty of links, i cant c&p or else i would put them here, google natural child project and co-sleeping, they have a page specifically on it and links etc.

also co-sleeping.org provides lots of information and research.

the unicef leaflet on safe co-sleeping is also endorsed by sids.

its about making sure people are informed, that IS better than a blanket dont do it.

also from what unicef say the safest option is deemed to be a side cot, ie one that is right up against your bed, this is shown in their leaflet as the optimum, that you have the cot right up against your bed. so not just a cot in your room, that isnt as safe as a side car cot. this information isnt shared either.

there needs to be lots more research and also information should be shared on what you can do to minimse risks, that includes co-sleeping.

and with regards to co-sleeping rates being low in the uk, bfeeding rates are also low, the two may be linked? bfeeding also reduces the risk of sids, unicef, WHO all recomend bfeeding as a way to help reduce the rate of sids. this is information that isnt always shared, i guess as mothers use it as another stick to beat ourselves with.

we all know bfeeding is 'best' and is safest, but we still provide information on how to bottlefeed safely.

I co-slept with DCs 3, 4 and 5.

As a result I had the energy and focus to go about my day with 3, 4 and then 5 small children and baby in tow. When I had DD1 and DS sleeping in the cot and had to get up several times a night I was a zombie and it is a miracle I didn't crash the car or leave either of them in the supermarket trolley by accident and drive home, etc., after a few months of disturbed nights (DD1 wasn't a great sleeper and DS's sleep 'patterns' changed constantly until he finally 'slept through' - meaning 6 hours a night - at 8 months or so).

It is possible to do it safely as long as your bed is big enough. There are also tandem cots that clip to the side of your bed that allow a version of co-sleeping without any risk whatsoever.

Hopskipandjump: seems to me you have misunderstood Haycock's quote. The only way I can square what you say is by assuming co-sleeping is safer (i.e. prevents SIDS) than sleeping in a cot. Haycock's opinion about bf organisations is just that, an opinion. Yours that co-sleeping is completely safe is just that, an opinion.

No, what I'm saying is that, ok let me try again...

Let's say (for sake of argument) that the statistical risk of bedsharing and cot sleeping was now exactly the same. It would be nonsensical to say that the risks associated with cot sleeping had reduced sixfold so it was safer to cot sleep.

I believe the six times thing is a red herring although I admit it sounds impressive. You need to look at the rates now. That is why I'm dismissing that particular part of his webchat.

Furthermore, the following is important for me (especially the part I bolded)...

"the risk did not reach conventional statistical significance (P

oh, it is important because no-one smokes in our family.

LeBFG, most of the studies suggest about a 50/50 split on sleep environment, with many western studies suggesting up to 70% will cosleep at some point. So it is not true to suggest that many more use cots than cosleep so that increases the risk, even here in the UK.

It isn't like having a nicer train at all, there's no comparison. Many people literally can't manage to get any sleep without co-sleeping and are in situations where that means they are not safe to drive or where it is seriously deletrious to their mental health etc. That's a far cry from having a "slightly nicer" train journey. Again, your analogy doesn't really match the situation. If you said that there was a flaw that might be associated with death in the region of .48 per 1000 individuals who smoke, drink or take drugs while on the train with an unknown percentage of these not having an additional risk also dying, well then I don't really think that it's an issue much worth talking about no.

Again: many more children die in cars and on the road than in their parents' beds while they are babies. That is without there being potentially unknown underlying health conditions of viruses that may elevate the death rate. We don't tell people not to travel in cars. We don't refuse to give information on safe bottlefeeding to families even though the entire health profession agrees that breast is better, safer etc etc.

I think you are not really responding to many of the points being made here LeBFG. The NHS message isn't one of consensus by any means. There are certainly cases where the message is given as a ban for fear that some people in targeted high risk populations won't understand a more subtle or qualified message. None of these things makes cosleeping inherently as risky as you are making it out to be. The facts just don't support a position that it is dangerous just that this very rare occurrence may be associated in some situations with parental bedsharing, with higher risk if drink, drugs or smoking is involved. That is consensus now, not that cosleeping is more dangerous.

I am in Sweden and we are advised to co-sleep, they also say you don't need a new cot mattress. I said to my midwife that I was worried as the advice is so different to the UK advice and she said "with all respect Sweden has the worlds lowest infant mortality rate, I think you should listen to the advice here and not the UK advice."

Sweden does have avery high breast feeding rate, maybe that helps keep the infant mortality and sids rates down despit the lack of following guidelines.

The only personal experience I have of SIDS is my friends baby who she co-slept with in the night time, he died whilst he was in his cot having a day time nap :(

Are there any statistics about putting the Moses basket on the bed next to mum? I felt this was the safest way to so sleep with ds2, as I had a very soft mattress. I pushed the bed up against the wall.

I would think that would be equivalent to a side car cot? colditz

honeytea i remember reading somewhere that a baby that usually co-sleeps but us then put in a cot us at higher risk from sids? Something to do with slerping more deeply than it usually would? Cant remember where i read it tho.

Do they give you safe co-slerping guidkined in sweden?

Co sleeping with your baby is the most natural thing in the world. All mammals do it, more people in the world do it than do cot sleeping.

Putting a newborn on it's own in a cot is totally against my instincts. Trust your instincts, cot death happens in cots and on sofas/chairs or with drugs/alcohol/smoking implicated.
There are no stats on safe co sleeping.

They have given us no advice at all, the only thing they said is that if you have sex whilst co-sleeping to make sure you don't scare the baby and make sure you don't bounce it out of the bed

They also say that you should not drink any alcohol at all with a small baby regardless of if you breastfeed (which everyone seems to) she said it was more about caring for a bbay drunk.

There are too many points for one sole poster to address. I address the points that interest me/I feel are most salient.

For HopSkip, note what I've highlighted in bold, this is important to me: The difference was statistically significant in 6 of these studies; ^(1-3, 5, 7, 8) in the other two (4, 6) the risk did not reach conventional statistical significance (P

Alert to the MN christmas appeal go on feel all warm and fuzzy

I would like to add that as an evolutionist by training, it makes sense that babies would be well adapted to sleep with mum so the . At the same time, I can also see that we don't live and sleep in a world where we evolved.