Sleeping With Baby

It seems the most natural thing in the world that your baby to bed, and them with this little piece of mankind is the closeness, comfort and reassurance they provide. Mothers who do not know that he is a cranky baby and makes quiet without stumbling out of bed in the shocking cold of early morning half-dazed sleep deprived state of silent resentment.
But we need not recount relevant bodies, including the Department of Health and a leading charity. We must go against our instincts, because we risk the lives of our baby. Bed sharing is a risk of sudden death syndrome in infants.
The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths (fsid) and the Department of categorically state that the safest place for a child in a crib in parent's room. Babies should sleep alone. Nursing mothers should wake up, get up at dawn cold, pick you up, can be seen eating in a comfortable chair, and then back into bed and we hope they will not whine plaintively for long.
This message has been strongly influenced by the Foundation on the publication of a study be repeated in this week's British Medical Journal, which is fsid funds. "The latest findings confirmed by researchers at the University of Bristol ... On that" the safest place for a baby to sleep is in a separate bed. The study of four years ... Noted that there was in half of all unexpected deaths of children in south-west of England, dead babies sleep with a parent or caregiver, "said fsid release.
It is troubling, the release continues, is that 25% of mothers in the survey were not "convinced that bed sharing increases the risk of sudden infant death can.
But who will read the full study, by a very experienced and respected team of Bristol and Warwick universities, he is deeply committed to doing it to believe it either.
Yes - the study found that 54% of sudden death syndrome in infants, while the baby slept all happened with a parent. But although the risk is high when it crashed on the couch, it was only under considerable in a bed, where the parent had drunk more than two units of alcohol or drugs had to be taken.
This is a serious, earnest research by a team with excellent references have worked in this field for 20 years. They are all sudden unexplained death (SIDS - sudden death syndrome in infants often) in the south-west England between early 2003 and late 2006. After setting campaigns in the 90s about the dangers of babies sleeping on their fronts, has reduced the number of SIDS dramatically - by half. But there were many dead (79) in this study and their conclusions are valid.
Peter Fleming, professor of infant health and developmental biology, physiology at Bristol, one of the authors of the study, was dismayed by the misrepresentation, as it appears on paper in the media during the week . "I felt really uncomfortable, it is," he told the Guardian yesterday.
"My opinion is that the positive message of this study is that it is not drink or take drugs and do not smoke, especially for nursing mothers. We have no increased risk of bed sharing. C ' is a very different message from which a media outlet. "
One can say he slept half the deaths among children and their parents. One could also say that half the deaths were infants alone in his crib, he said, but "I do not see anyone say:" Do not put your baby in a cradle. "
Fleming has a particular reason for concern. The study showed that the baby is sleeping on the couch is really a risk. But seven of the dead to tell their parents, their child, they feed on the sofa, consciously went to bed sharing is dangerous, and fell asleep.
"Any board can prevent the sharing of bed bring with it the danger of the tired parents feed their baby on a sofa, which takes a much greater risk than sleeping together in bed with their parents," the paper said. "The rumor Coated two children of AS, was cooperation on a couch telling us that they had previously advised the child to bed, but did not realize the risks of falling asleep on the couch. "
However, despite the concerns of the fsid Fleming had agreed to hold the line with the Ministry of Health yesterday: "The safest place for a baby to sleep in a bed next to the bed with parents." He pointed out that the same sentence in the paper by Fleming appears, but does not mention the following, then: "Based on data from research on Sid, one wonders if the advice is to avoid bed sharing, are generalizable and if such a simplistic approach would not hurt. Parents of infants must be selected during the night, feed them, sometimes several times, and if you can demonize parents bed we in danger of being the couch is. A better approach in May to warn parents of special circumstances that infants at risk. "
Joyce Epstein, director of fsid, said it was too complicated. "If you can, the attention of the population after more than three seconds that you want to get the whole story every time, but how you lose everything?" She says. From their point of view, the simple message and direct - you put your baby to sleep in a bed beside the bed, in bed, is the key.
The new study, she said, only one study (although in a 2006 Lancet paper of the Bristol team also found a link and drinking) drugs. George Haycock, professor emeritus of pediatrics at St. George's Hospital, London, fsid scientific adviser, points to nine previous studies that have looked at co-sleeping and sudden infant death syndrome, and found that it's risky in bed.
"We can not say there is no danger," said Haycock, albeit for non-smokers is low. And there is silence critics of the lobby "silent" bed sharing defense if there is no concrete evidence that it increases the number of women who breastfeed.
But Fleming said, this study opens new perspectives. Nobody has collected in the past, reliable information on the drug. "The advantage of this study is that because we evaluated the scenario of death, three to four hours after the child was dead, we could look for all possible factors in the past, we could not see . When the researchers talked to parents with sympathy, without guilt, and the possibility of explanations on their tragic loss, the parents told them everything, including what they drank and what drugs they have taken the previous evening. "People are very willing to share this information with you at this time," he said. "You see the real picture."
The document adds that the results of some bizarre cultural connections between sleep and co-Sid can explain. Among the black African population in the United States and Maori and Aborigines in which children sleep with their parents, the sudden infant death are high, but the bed sharing in other communities, such as Japan, Hong Kong and Bangladesh and other Asian peoples in the United Kingdom deaths low. The difference lies in their consumption of tobacco, alcohol and drug habits.
Fsid purpose is to eliminate the sudden death of the child and that is what they believe their opinions on the implementation of babies in a cot on his back, feet up "on a firm mattress without a pillow will help. But other organizations also believe that this can be real benefits to your baby to bed. The National Childbirth Trust (NCT), Parenting leading the nation) organization (and champion Breastfeeding has openly advocated sharing the bed.
"The study shows that the risks for children whose parents do not smoke or consume alcohol or drugs, but the stock has a bed with her baby at least for babies in a separate bed," says Chief research Mary Newburn in a statement in response to the publication of the BMJ.
The NCT is the position of a response to the reality of its members. "Many parents share their bed with their baby when they are young and can be done safely," Newburn said. "It is clear from surveys that about half of parents sleep with their babies at some time during the first six months and approximately one quarter is not as regular, then we must help them do so as safe as possible. "
Rosie Dodds, NCT senior officer of public policy, said they understood the fsid's position. "They are really on the number of babies who die uneasy and wants everyone to be as safe as possible," she said. "But there are undoubtedly benefits to babies in bed with parents." While recognizing there is no scientific evidence that bed sharing increases are breastfeeding, a club, and breastfeeding in itself has been shown to reduce the risk of sudden death syndrome in infants.
Deborah Jackson, author of three in a bed, she said, think we're in Britain, "on the bad aspects in bed with the baby, which is fixed is strange, because" the history of shared shared bed or sleep with the baby is as old as humanity itself. "
Their research, their own experiences with sharing the bed with her three children, she is deeply convinced of the benefit for both mother and child. Aware of the mother of their child, when she sleeps and reacts to them. "[If] I was asleep," says Jackson. "[One of my children] to sleep beside me. I got up suddenly in the night and held them on the bed and she was sick," she said. Somehow she knew the baby was on the point of being healthy.
But there are significant risks if the mother has been drinking or drugs. "All things that make it good it can be very dangerous if you are not incredibly useful. All this is true in parenting, "she said.
Sudden infant death is devastating, and they are all on the same page - they want to see less tragic families who lost their children. But this is clearly not a single street, walking all at the same table. In the end, you could post prohibitive for parents and same cons-productive. This may be one case in which the public should be commended for his intelligence and allows him to decide on the basis of something very informative.