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Parenting
with Gary & Anne Marie: Infant
Bed sharing: What facts are known about co-sleeping with an infant?
Prelude
To the point of
becoming faddish, co-sleeping with an infant is on the rise. Maybe you
are contemplating the practice for your own family. Some theorists will
tell you bedsharing with an infant is the ultimate bonding, attachment
and nighttime breastfeeding experience. What facts do we know about co-sleeping
with an infant?
For all the years in Pastoral
ministry nothing was sadder than the times when Gary superintended the funerals
of infants. They were never easy. Too many questions with inadequate answers,
and very few answers which could ease a mother and father’s broken
heart. A mother places her baby down for a nap, only to discover an hour
later a lifeless child. They call it SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome,
a subcategory of SUDI or Sudden Unexpected Death of Infants).
There may exist in this
world few things worse than a mother and father losing a baby without warning,
but we cannot think of any. The untimely passing of a child can produce feelings
of powerlessness, guilt or remorse. The throbbing query of the soul, “Could I have done something different, something
more or something less,” haunts the heart. SIDS happen and modern medicine
still cannot explain why. As a result, no blame can be placed and no grounds
for guilt are justified.
In one sense, the death
of infants resulting from co-sleeping arrangements are more tragic. While
a SIDS death is unwanted, a parental overlay death is unwanted and unwarranted.
A SIDS death is unpredictable, a co-sleeping death is also unpredictable
but completely preventable. That is why co-sleeping with infants may be the
ultimate risk decision of our day. Coroner John McGoff, M.D., says infant
deaths related to unsafe sleeping practices have reached "epidemic" proportions
in the Indianapolis area. (http://medicine.indiana.edu/news_releases/archive_02/safekids_02.html) Statistics
seem to suggest it is not just Indianapolis.
In 1985, when we first began to voice our concern over the Family Bed movement,
no one really paid much attention. Infant deaths due to parental overlay were
often dismissed or downplayed as unfortunate anomalies. Today, a plethora of
articles ranging from warning, to condemning co-sleeping with infants, leaps
from the pages of medical periodicals, newspapers and internet sites. In the
last twenty years, the AAP has moved from silence to public warning. They are
joining a host of child advocacy groups and State and Federal policy makers
who are calling for public warnings and education about the dangers of mothers
co-sleeping with their infants.
After reading numerous reviews, studies, pro and con claims, letters to the
editor, research projects and court transcripts of parental overlay cases,
we believe the present debate can be reduced to seven facts.
Fact 1: No infant sleep environment is absolutely risk-free.
Fact 2: While some babies die in cribs, no baby has ever been smothered to
death in a crib by a sleeping parent.
Fact 3: Co-sleeping with an infant dramatically increases the risk of death
since it brings into play an uncontrollable variable; that being a sleeping
parent whose nocturnal bed movements create conditions that can lead to infant
suffocation.
Fact 4: Babies do die in co-sleeping arrangements.
Fact 5: An infant death that results from a co-sleeping arrangement is a
needless death and is one-hundred percent preventable.
Fact 6: The rate of infant deaths in the last twenty years due to parental
overlay has increased in direct proportion to the increased popularity of the
mother- centered attachment theories, which advocate the practice and claim
it to be safe and necessary.
Fact 7: While the nominal benefits of co-sleeping are only speculative, the
risks are real. There is no evidence that suggests that the bonding or breastfeeding
benefits derived from a co-sleeping arrangement outweighs the significant risk
of a wrongful infant death by suffocation. NONE! To suggest otherwise would
be irresponsible.
Resources to consider.
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Article
by Gary Ezzo and Anne Marie Ezzo
