Pediatrics for many years has always had strong opinions about this issue. Really no matter how you raise your baby whether it is breast feeding, pacifiers, or vaccines, someone will more than likely criticize you. Exactly where you lay your baby down is a whole other story. Pediatricians always for the most part vigorously urge parents to let their babies sleep in a crib, bassinet, or any surface that is firm and comfortable for the baby except for the parent’s bed. Especially in the past few years, parents have been arguing with doctors that sleeping with the infant has significant meaning and is both natural and beneficial. Parents claim that co sleeping with their infants will give successful breast feeding, stronger mother child bonding, and may give them a chance to detect and stop Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Has there ever been evidence to support these claims and what is the overall safety of co sleeping?

Well no. There has never been any evidence to support these claims, but a new study has been conducted and proves what most pediatricians have been preaching about all along. There is a huge and substantial risk when parents and infants share the bed. Parents should be aware of these risks and think twice before laying the baby down at night with them.

This study has been conducted over the past 20 years ending in 2004 through out the United States. In this study, the researchers collected death certificates on babies who had been suspected of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Babies who had died all of a sudden and unexpected deaths. Most children who had this kind of deaths, no conclusion or cause could be brought up to why these children died this way. These children were thought to have died of SIDS. Over the past 20 years of this study, the numbers of SIDS cases have dramatically dropped. Because of this find, the “Back to Sleep” campaign was founded. “Back to Sleep” encourages parents to lay their child on their backs to go to sleep, to reduce the risk of SIDS. SIDS is more likely to occur when the child in laid face down.

There is also another category with unexpected infant’s deaths. It’s called Accidental Suffocation and Strangulation in bed. Over the past 20 years, those numbers have quadrupled. Some of the deaths had nothing to do with bed sharing such as strangulation in a defective crib. About 15% of unexplained deaths in infants, which the surface was known, occurred in cribs. More than half of sudden and unexpected infant deaths that fell in the category of suffocation or strangulation did occur when the parents and infants shared the same bed. About 80% of those deaths happened in an adult bed, sofa, and couch. Some of these deaths were caused by the baby suffocating by bedding material and wedging between two surfaces. The most common was overlying, where the parents accidentally rolled over the baby, suffocating it.

The study conducted doesn’t exactly gives answers about the safety or risk of sleeping with the baby but it sure does makes us question the next time we put the baby in the bed with us. There have been some suggestions made for those who do want their baby to sleep in the bed with them although there are no facts to back them up. These would include; a device that is made to place the baby on its side which has 2 firm pieces that are concave, to fit the baby’s back and stomach area, to prevent it from rolling over on its stomach. Make sure you always have tight fitting bedding to prevent the baby from suffocating, and always have a firm surface for the baby to lay on. Now and days, a bassinette, is made to where it can be put right up next to the parents bed and has a door that slides down so the parents have easy access to the baby. It is never a good idea to let the baby sleep with you if you are taking any medications or have consumed alcoholic beverages that may cause you to go into a deep sleep. It is important for parents to know that even though there are common beliefs that bed sharing has benefits, it also carries significant risks, which out weights the benefits.