I was just working on a post about co-sleeping today during Alex’s afternoon nap, but since it’s not done yet I thought I’d lead with this reply to the new research saying that bed-sharing increases the risk of SIDS five-fold (maybe you’ve seen it). I haven’t done the thoughtful evaluation of the research that this blogger has but, like him, I’m not buying it. What do you think?
My own co-sleeping post will be finished soon (tomorrow, maybe?).
If you haven’t heard or seen yet, you probably will soon: news media reports that bedsharing comes with a five times greater risk of SIDS, even if the mother is a breastfeeding non-smoker.
Don’t believe it folks.
And I’m not just saying that because I’m sympathetic to breastfeeding and bedsharing. There is what appears to me to be an organized, and very persistent campaign against bedsharing going on in the Western world. I don’t quite understand it. I think it might partly be well-intentioned, because bedsharing does definitely increase the risk of sudden infant death, but only in certain circumstances – particularly if the mother smokes (probably the father too, but they haven’t collected much data about paternal smoking) and particularly in the context of parental alcohol or drug use ( and most likely, intoxication, not just a glass of wine). I think that some of the anti-bed-sharing lobby thinks…
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Natural Birth and Parenting 