I have written numerous articles on co-sleeping, on my belief that it reduces the risks of SIDS, that it helps breastfeeding mothers and that indeed, “sharing sleep” with our twins was the only way that I survived the twins’ first year. When we started co-sleeping with our daughter in 1999, it was still considered a weird practice. It wasn’t talked about much and there hadn’t been a lot of studies on it at that point.
This week however, a nine month study by Scripps Howard News Service has suggested that most babies who died of SIDS, really died of accidental suffocation either by a parent smothering the infant or by excessive bedding smothering the infant. In the counties they studied, they believe that 72% of infants formerly believed to have died from SIDS, actually died from suffocation. The study concluded there were numerous factors to the deaths being diagnosed, including coroners not following proper protocol.
Despite this study, I remain unconvinced that co-sleeping in all of its forms is unsafe for babies. The study notes that many infants who died were sleeping in a big bed with four or five family members. It also notes that in many instances, drugs or alcohol was involved. I have to say as a co-sleeping advocate, I would never do either of these things.
First of all safe co-sleeping (and yes, I’m claiming there is such a thing) cannot involve drugs or alcohol. Even over the counter medications that might make a mother less aware should not be taken. Secondly, safe co-sleeping does not involve several family members in a bed next to the infant. The arrangement should be such that the infant is only sleeping next to the mother. Likewise, you cannot use a lot of blankets when you’re co-sleeping.
The study makes the bold statement that babies rarely die alone in cribs. However, this statement needs to be examined critically. First of all, a more accurate statement would reflect how many babies die alone in cribs vs. how many babies die co-sleeping safely. I strongly suspect that if we removed cases where there were known drugs and alcohol involved, we would find it far more likely (statistically speaking) for an infant to die alone in his crib.
There is a strong and well documented link that shows breastfeeding to reduce the risk of SIDS. There is also a strong and well documented link that shows that co-sleeping improves the breastfeeding relationship. It stands to reason, and in fact some studies have said so, that if co-sleeping improves breastfeeding, and exclusively breastfeeding decreases the risk of SIDS, then co-sleeping can reduce the risk of SIDS as well.
The one question though that remains unanswered for me, is our own infant mortality rate. The United States, considering we are such a wealthy nation, has a very high infant mortality rate. We have a very high “SIDS” rate comparatively. However, I would not describe co-sleeping here to be ‘typical’. Other countries however, practice co-sleeping as a cultural norm. If much of co-sleeping is really to blame for the SIDS phenomenon, then why isn’t the rate of SIDS substantially higher in other countries? In fact, it’s not. . .it’s much lower.