Ever since I have had babies, and even before that, SIDS is talked about to parents everywhere by their healthcare providers. And rightly so. SIDS, or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, remains the number one cause of infant deaths. It is a scary thing for a parent to think about. The thought of an unexplained death of your precious baby is unimaginable, but it still happens.
In the past, I haven’t worried about SIDS too much myself. I am careful about so many of the risk factors like making sure there aren’t too many blankets in the crib, not dressing my child too warmly, and I’m not a smoker. However, a recent study has shown that another risk factor might be getting overlooked. Co-sleeping. But, is death due to co-sleeping really SIDS (an unexplained death) or is it really just suffocation?
With my first two children, I didn’t co-sleep too much. Instead, I used the Mini Arm’s Reach Co-Sleeper next to my bed. This is mostly because I’m a super light sleeper and having a wiggly body next to me often keeps me awake. But, with the birth of my third child, along came his own unique personality, and we have been co-sleeping since he was born. He always starts out in his co-sleeper, but ends up in our bed. I’ve just been too tired this time around to fight him going back into his own bed. So, I just nurse him and then let him stay next to me.
An article I read recently talked about a study that looked at SIDS deaths from 1991 (before all the awareness first started in 1994) through 2008 and they came up with some interesting findings regarding co-sleeping. They found that the death rate of children put to sleep on their backs dropped after the campaign to raise awareness, but “the proportion of SIDS infants that had shared a bed with a parent rose from 19.2% to 37.9% during that time and was especially pronounced among infants less than 2 months old (29% versus 63.8%)”. I found this interesting.
However, another article on NPR.com suggests that maybe the SIDS deaths aren’t really a mystery after all, but that healthcare providers and law enforcement are afraid to call it what it really is, suffocation. Many times, when a child dies from suffocation, it is labeled as SIDS. It is a very interesting article that discusses in detail what should be done about this labeling problem. Perhaps, parents should be taught about the dangers of suffocation with infants, instead of calling it an unexplained death. Because, suffocation is easily prevented.
Co-sleeping has become a more common trend in recent years. But, you still have to take precautions. This does not mean that if you co-sleep, you will automatically be at more risk for SIDS. In fact, the first article emphasizes that the risk increases with multiple risk factors that your child has, not with only one risk factor. So, the more risk factors, the more at risk your child is. In fact, a true SIDS death (an actual unexplained death, not suffocation) is very rare.
So, the take away is to be careful. Educate yourself about ALL of the risk factors of SIDS and suffocation, especially if you decide to co-sleep. Make sure that you are doing everything in your power to keep your baby safe while he sleeps soundly by your side.