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...

kekouan I have to admit I went through a long time of super-light sleeping after that, and panicked waking up during the night, but I will always always be grateful that she was in bed with me :)

hopandaskip - (((hugs))) - isn't it amazing, yet terrifying? you must understand the strange mixture of feelings I have too.
I also fell into co-sleeping and with my first (also a boy), i tried very hard to 'make' him sleep in a basket even though it was against every instinct I had. Needless to say, he ended up in with us after a couple of weeks lol

Also someone asked what do you do when they are upstairs asleep and you are watching x factor - or something along those lines...
The answer is ... when they get to the age that they want to go to sleep at 7-8 kiddy bedtime-ness, you get them to sleep with you in the bed, move them o sidecar cot (exension of bed essentially) and purchase a babydan wooden bedguard that slots in and out ideally to allow a barrier which can then be removed when you go to bed

I am astonished that the nhs would produce an anti co-sleeping leaflet. Of course it's sensible to take precautions to ensure that your baby is safe, but to actually advise against it is very wrong IMO. I feel very sad that there are prospective mothers out there who would miss out on such a happy loving experience. Babies want to be held and to be close to their parents, co-sleeping enables that process to continue throughout the night. I look back on co-sleeping with enormous fondness and although I know they don't consciously remember it, I see the look of contentment and utter relaxation on my children's faces when they crawl in for a morning cuddle and know that the association of comfort and happiness stems from their infancy. I don't regret doing it for a second.

Sasa, it was like a feeling of doom! I still wonder what would have happened if he had been in his own room in a cot like his older brother was, or even across the room.

Sleeping in the evening... wow, you lot had babies that slept a)when you didn't want to (I always wanted to in the early days and he didn't!) and b)in the evening. Both of mine wanted to feed heavily in the evening when little and just wouldn't go to sleep until about 9.

As for sleeping without us, well that couldn't ever happen with #2, he couldn't cope awake or asleep without being in contact with someone. We wore him a lot in the sling, sometimes sat down watching TV or reading a bedtime story to my older one. Thank all that is holy for the wonders of slings. If I was really lucky and he was very soundly asleep I could put him in the sling in a bouncy chair for long enough to pee. DH and I took sleeping in shifts to start with. I also had a sling like baby carseat and we would wear him in that to sleep and could put him down for maybe a few minutes or put it next to us on the sofa with our arm draped across him.

We have co slept with our dd since the day she was born. it was a decision made pre birth.

we dont have a problem.

When was the last time you rolled onto your dw/dh or fell out of bed unless pissed? ~You just dont do it . You instinctively know where you dc is and dont sleep on them unless you are medicated, drunk, drugged, overweight.

Would reccommend it.

Before I went to bed I put them in their cots. When they woke in the night to bf I put them in bed with me. So exhausted better than falling asleep on a sofa or chair. No pillow nr baby, duvet down by waist, bf . I was dozing I think mostly but at least we gt some rest. It's harder as you get more dcs, plus you realise - well I did- that you must do what's right for you and the baby not what is right for the views of the current hv.

The NHS will never advise to do something dangerous. The evidence for the moment shows co-sleeping to be more dangerous than sleeping in a cot.

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.

Startailoforangeandgold: This is the one price of official scaremongering that makes me unbelievably stabbyangry. scaremongering? Is smoking in pregnancy scaremongering? I would class eating honey before 1 year as scaremongering but I bet most posters who co-sleep on here wouldn't let honey pass the lips of their babies....even though it's far safer.

How the fuck you are supposed to stay sane and get any sleep if you don't sometimes co sleep part of some nights is a total and utter mystery to me. Plenty of people refuse to co-sleep. I'm the only person in my family and friendship group who did. They are all sane.

Have been lurking for a while on this. It's a massively contentious issue and I, like so many others ended up co-sleeping despite not planning to initially. When we did end up making the conscious decision to go ahead with this approach, I read up alot on it and to me, it made alot of sense. Quite apart from anything else, as far as I'm aware, Western European based cultures are the only culture not to co-sleep as a norm, it seems as though in the West, as soon as baby is born, we are trying to encourage them to be as 'independent' as possible, which isn't necessarily always the best thing for baby (I also believe in being aware of your baby's needs, not all baby's and infants enjoy co-sleeping and so I think it's important not to force them to co-sleep).

I read some interesting information that supported co-sleeping, including the theory that it can reduce the risk of SIDS as the carbon dioxide levels in a mothers' breath can stimulate breathing in baby and that baby's vitals are more level and in synch with mum's when sharing a bed. All fairly controversial stuff and no, I don't have a link to any reasearch, but I'm sure if you google it you'll find it. (now off to hide under a rock somewhere and prepare for the general flaming that will ensue)

Please, you find and link the research you're referring to RuByMaMa .

I co slept with my DD, never even bought a cot......if DP had a drink she would sleep in a plastic laundry basket on floor next to bed! She's 11 so long time ago. I also co slept with my DD and DS twins, I did have a drop side cot next to the bed but only ever used it when DP had a drink but I'd get no sleep as I BF on demand so if I hadn't co sleeped I wouldn't have got any!
My MW said the guidelines for not co sleeping are if baby is not a good weight, if mum is heavy sleeper, if either parents drink or smoke and she advised me that if I was extremely tired to put them in the cot! I have to say I thought it was wonderful and I would happily recommend it to any sensible adult but I also have to say it did worry me but I'm such a light sleeper since having DC any movement and I would wake but I think the worry of cot dealth was too much for me! Although I'm now 29 weeks but this time we have a memory foam mattress so I don't know what to do, we've bought a Moses basket which I'm not liking the look of as it doesn't look very breathable so we're going to buy a drop side cot. Can't really afford to buy a firm mattress so will have to play it by ear!

What you have to remember is organisations take statistics from studies and research carried out by other organisations. They don't necessarily carry them out themselves.

If you look on the office of national statistics websit many state that by co sleeping they mean in the same room, not necessarily the same bed. Some organisations don't state that.

It's never been an issue for me as ds2&3 were prem so your advised not to co sleep.

hopandaskip the upstairs sleeping thing only happens for me from about 10 months onwards - before this, they are either in a sling or on my lap in the evenings ;)

Yes, a good reason to check out expert opinion Moominscary rather than relying on bf organisations for example who may have an agenda.

cosleeping.nd.edu/assets/25453/maternal_proximity_and_infant_co2_environment_during_bedsharing_and_possible_implications_for_sids_research.pdf

books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=grrA421tRNkC&oi=fnd&pg=PA53&dq=McKenna+JJ,+Mosko+S.+Mother-infant+cosleeping:+toward+a+new+scientific&ots=WNylRV1c--&sig=XRnDAPyq5rbXyjXx18HBBXf77D0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Don't have time to find links to any others at the moment, sorry

Sorry, will try that again

cosleeping.nd.edu/assets/25453/maternal_proximity_and_infant_co2_environment_during_bedsharing_and_possible_implications_for_sids_research.pdf

books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=grrA421tRNkC&oi=fnd&pg=PA53&dq=McKenna+JJ,+Mosko+S.+Mother-infant+cosleeping:+toward+a+new+scientific&ots=WNylRV1c--&sig=XRnDAPyq5rbXyjXx18HBBXf77D0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Some excerpts from 'Paediatric Respiratory Reviews' Medical Journal aticle:

"?Our data do not support this recommendation. Almost all SIDS deaths associated with parental bedsharing occurred in conjunction with a history of parental drug use and occurred in association with the prone sleep position or sleep surfaces such as a couch or waterbed.? Gessner et al.1"
"Polysomnographic studies comparing exclusively breast feeding, bedsharing and solitary sleeping mothers show that even in the deepest stages of sleep, mothers aroused 30% more frequently when they bedshared. That a high fraction (∼1/2) of maternal arousals overlaps the infant's arousals and about two-thirds of those times, the infant clearly aroused first suggests a relatively high responsivity on the part of the mother. This heightened sensitivity might increase the chances that mothers could more quickly detect and intervene against a life threatening event that night-time separation from the baby precludes. [19] and [20]"
"Most USA and other western infants die from SIDS or from fatal accidents during solitary sleep outside the supervision of a committed adult.24 Moreover, the overwhelming number of suspected accidental overlays or fatal accidents occur not within breast feeding?bedsharing communities but in urban poverty, where multiple independent SIDS risk ?factors? converge and bottle feeding rather than breast feeding predominates. Additional adverse risk ?factors? associated with bedsharing in high-risk populations are maternal smoking, infants placed to sleep on pillows or under duvets, with other children and co-sleeping with infants on sofas, waterbeds or couches. Bedsharing when the infant sleeps with an adult other than the mother, maternal exhaustion, alcohol or drug use, or leaving infants unattended on an adult bed also increase SIDS risks and/or fatal accidents. [21], [25], [26], [27] and [28]"

I was just wondering why exactly its felt, and I mean scientific fact, that babies are more likely to die of SIDS when co sleeping. Apologies if I've missed it in another post but There seems to be alot of talk of this greater incidence but not very much reasoning behind it given.
I don't think you can just simply look at the numbers of babies who have died from SIDS and then tally up who was co sleeping and who wasn't to make your decision. You'd need to carefully research each and every death and look at number of pillows, who else was in the bed, did the child have a pre existing condition, did the mother smoke in pregnancy and all the other known risk factors to SIDS. It could be that those babies would have died whether they were in a cot anyway. We will never know.
There seems to be this massive agenda to get babies to sleep alone, all the way through the night, as early as possible and its just not natural. How many other animals on the planet, put their tiny babies to sleep elsewhere and expect them to stay there for 10 hours. None. It is totally normal for a baby to not settle unless its with its mother and has access to nurse frequently day and night. I have no idea why people think otherwise!

And some more:
"Mechanical breathing teddy bears placed next to apnoea-prone human newborns, which replicate what the mother's body provides, have the effect of reducing infant apnoeas sometimes by as much as 40?60%, in addition to physically drawing infants to sleep next to them.39 Many studies similarly show that infant mammals, including human infants, appear to be pre-sensitised to receive sensory signals linking them to a co-sleeping partner. [40], [41], [42] and [43]"
"Until recently, all human infants experienced access to at least one co-sleeping adult body, usually the mother [45] and [46] so it is not surprising that maternal contact stimulates a variety of significant ?hidden regulatory processes? that are clinically advantageous to infants."

Yes LeBFG, but it's not really comparable to the honey risk or eating Mr. Whippy in pregnancy because these things can easily be avoided by the majority without increasing risks of anything else. Cosleeping can reduce greater risks.

Mindful of this discussion, last night I wondered if I should try harder to have ds2 in the Moses basket for longer in the night. He naps in there and spends the first part of the night in there but comes into bed when he wakes. So last night I tried to put him down but he would have none of it.. so I did some pick up/put down and then tried feeding him back to sleep. After about half an hour I knew I was in serious danger of drifting off with him in the chair and that sleeping in the bed would be safer. Again, I sleep in the bed on my own with him, with the bed pushed against the wall, no pillow, no duvet, regulated temp etc. Similarly, my experience with ds1 who woke two hourly until he was 15 months tells me that if I have severely interrupted sleep (with ds1 I used to have to pump after feeding once a night) that everyday activities pose more danger e.g. driving or crossing the road.

I don't cosleep because I love the cuddles. I actually don't really like it, I find the position I instinctively adopt is very hard on my hips and back and I would much prefer for ds2 to just sleep through the night in his cot... and certainly when he reaches the milestone of sleeping through he will not be coming into my bed. However, I cannot see how advising me not to sleep with him under any* circumstances could possibly be the safest thing for our family. SIDS is a tiny risk. Accidents on the road are a much bigger risk and accidents increase when you are severely sleep deprived.

Also this link from the NHS suggests that there isn't a simple understanding that the research shows that cosleeping is more dangerous than not, so blanket guidelines seem unhelpful. When upwards of 50% of people worldwide do something, advising them not to do it under any circumstances and refusing to discuss safer ways to do it seems hugely irresponsible from a health promotion point of view.

I co-slept with DD in the hospital for the 3 nights we were there, fully suppoted by the nurses and midwives. I remember co-sleeping ocassionally with her until she ended up in her own room at 9 1/2 weeks, by which time she was on formula.

DS, OTOH, had a cot all ready for him in our room, yet when we returned home (the same day he was born) I just brought him into our bed as it felt right. After that I followed his lead; at first he slept close to me to be close to the breast, but when he became more wriggly and cross at being too close we slept side by side, then when that was still too close I dropped the side of the cot and brought it to the bed. This was at about 4 1/2 months old. When he turned 6 months and starting to sleep through regularly we sorted out the spare room and made it into his room which is where has slept for 2 weeks. I think there have been 2 times where he's woken up in the night for a feed, otherwise he's slept through.

If I could change anything with DD, it would be to treat her the way I treated DS. Co-sleeping was an utter joy, but I didn't feel confident enough to carry on with DD, same as breastfeeding.

A few pointers. I can't comment on any of your c+p quotes sasmaxx because you haven't included ref to the paper(s).

Ruby. This McKenna guy gets about a bit. He is an anthropologist not a scientist. He work is interesting (from an anthropology/evolution pov) but really has nothing to say about whether co-sleeping is safer than cots.

Jakey. I completely agree with you. There is a huge agenda and pressure on mothers to get baby to sleep through. I felt totally inadquate that DS wasn't sleeping through at 6mo. THis is why I sometimes post on the sleep threads about getting 4/8 weeks old to sleep through - what's the point? Wrt the research. The scientific studies are extremely thorough. They do detailed questionnaires of all the things you've included in your list and more besides. I don't think scientists have an agenda anti-bed. They want to save babies' lives. The advice is have baby in the same room as mum, but not in the same bed: nothing stopping you having the cot attached or next to the parental bed. You can still wake frequently and see to baby.

Thunk:

Yes LeBFG, but it's not really comparable to the honey risk or eating Mr. Whippy in pregnancy because these things can easily be avoided by the majority without increasing risks of anything else. I sometimes think co-sleepers try to play down the risk because for them it is easier to do the more dangerous thing i.e. co-sleep. It's easy to give up honey - so most people do it even though it is debateable whether a risk even exists.

Cosleeping can reduce greater risks. Totally not sure of this. For every person who says they heard baby stop breathing, there is another who could say baby got stuck under the cover/squashing into mum's side.

Interesting point about sofa vs bed. I'm sure any and all experts in the field will tell you bed is better than sofa. Most would also still say better cot than bed.

I mean it reduces the proven greater risk of falling asleep with your baby in the chair or the sofa: that is a risk that is really proven and one worth paying serious attention to.

I am really not seeing how you are stating, again and again, that cosleeping is "the more dangerous thing" as though this were absolutely categorically proven. I really can't see the research to back up this statement. I have and had perinatal OCD which made me hypersensitive to risk beyond your wildest imaginings. There was no downplaying of risks. I had a fan in my room, gave them pacifiers.. was obsessed with it. I had a cosleeper and used to try and breastfeed over the edge of it (higher than you would imagine, believe me!) to put my son to sleep and still he wouldn't. I would sit and watch him sleeping and when he would go into a (totally normal) period of periodic breathing I would poke and prod him. Believe me, there has been NO denial of any risk in this house. Yet despite all of that and being massively risk averse even now I am far more will, I still see no logic in blanket denials of a very normal and typical human behaviour as a health promotion strategy nor do I see any level of solid evidence that suggests that it really is any more dangerous.

Certainly for me, it has been difficult to choose anything else because my children, who incidentally have both had difficulties with breastfeeding and have slow weight gain, just will NOT tolerate being in a cot all night long without hours and hours of rocking etc. There are greater risks to this in terms of everyday life.

There is a study somewhere, can't remember where, that compared sleep environments of typical lowrisk bedsharers and cot sleepers alike and found that there were some additional desaturation events and rebreathing episodes in bedsharers but that a typical infant just handles these well. Again, these were very small incidences, not massive risks, yet the authors suggested that it indicates why bedsharing/cosleeping may be more dangerous for higher risk infants.

My personal belief really is that we think that we can control risks in our current society but there is always risk, whether you are aware of it or not. Ultimately, many many babies who live in urban poverty, are formula fed, sharing a family bed with drug users etc will not succumb to SIDS while babies whose parents follow every single guideline will experience this tragedy. While it is sensible to take precautions where you can, pretending you can avoid risk by ticking boxes isn't really possible so rigid and inflexible advice about infant sleeping is unhelpful, causes panic and tortures people who have experienced a truly unimaginable tragedy. Babies sometimes die. It is beyond awful that this is the case, but it is, and I think it is highly unlikely that everyone in the world will ever cease cosleeping because of a very small risk of death. We really should all give up travelling in motored vehicles if risk is so intolerable as far many more people will die or be injured in these situations. We continue to travel by car and bus without dwelling morbidly on the risks because it is beneficial for us to do so, as it is beneficial for many parents of babies to get sleep.

LeBGF
Here are some of the references - can't look them all up right now.
[21] P.S. Blair, P.J. Fleming, I.J. Smith et al.
Babies sleeping with parents:case-control study of factors influencing the risk of the sudden infant death syndrome. CESDI SUDI research group
British Medical Journal, 319 (1999), pp. 1457?1462

P. Fleming, P. Blair, C. Bacon et al.
Environment of infants during sleep and the risk of the sudden infant death syndrome: results of 1993?1995 case control study for confidential inquiry into stillbirths and deaths in infancy. Confidential Enquiry into Stillbirths and Deaths Regional Coordinators and Researchers
British Medical Journal, 313 (1996), pp. 191?195

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Sleep environment and the risk of sudden infant death syndrome in an urban population: The Chicago Infant Mortality Study
Pediatrics, 111 (2003), pp. 1207?1214

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C. Carroll-Pankhurst, A. Mortimer
Sudden infant death syndrome, bed-sharing, parental weight, and age at death
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J. Kemp, B. Unger, D. Wilkins et al.
Unsafe sleep practices and an analysis of bed sharing among infants dying suddenly and unexpectedly: results of a four year, population-based, death-scene investigation study of sudden infant death syndrome and related deaths
Pediatrics, 106 (2000), p. e41

M.W. Stewart, L.A. Stewart
Modification of sleep respiratory patterns by auditory stimulation: Indications of a technique for preventing sudden infant death syndrome?
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