Oct 27 2008
Bed Sharing and SIDS Risk
A recently article on MSNBC posted that about 1/3 of women who receive WIC assistance share a bed with their infants. It continued to suggest that such a practice is unsafe and increases the possibility of SIDS risk for infants. The study suggested that women who bed share are more likely to be teen mothers, African American, or mothers with less education.
Really? I’m actually on the fence about this one. I don’t consider myself an uneducated mother (and I’m not a teen or an African American) but I did share a bed with my son when he was an infant. Having a c-section and trying to nurse at night is a complicated procedure unless the baby is right there so I kept him nearby. I did follow the rules about nixing fluffy comforters and pillows and we all survived to tell the tale.
There is also a large movement to support co-sleeping. As one article argues “Every scientific study of infant sleep confirms that babies benefits from co-sleeping. Not one shred of evidence exists to support the widely held notion that co-sleep is detrimental to the psychological or physical health of infants.”
Obviously the advice is contradictory. For our next son I’m actually planning on getting a c0-sleeper to attach to our bed. We have a new mattress that fits our bed frame a little differently and gaps would give me a bother if I had the baby directly in the bed with us. I’ll also be a c-section nursing mom which presents some challenges to getting out of bed every couple hours during the first weeks home.
It’s an interesting debate and one that I doubt will be resolved any time soon.
I co-slept with my daughter as well, after a c-section. It just made it easier to recover and tend to the baby at night. I have a college education, am not on WIC and I’m not a teenager either. Just a mom trying to do her best.