Comments on: 8.8 deaths per 100,000 population

By: Nadia

Nadia — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 15:03:59 +0000

Co-sleeping has worked very well for us. Thank you for such a great post!

By: Co-Sleeping Safety | PhD in Parenting

Co-Sleeping Safety | PhD in Parenting — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:10:38 +0000

[...] is using fear inducing headlines and horror stories to garner readership. But here is the thing. Saying that co-sleeping is dangerous is like saying that riding in a car is dangerous. There is no way to make car travel completely safe, but no method of travel is completely safe. [...]

By: Typology of the Bad Mother | PhD in Parenting

Typology of the Bad Mother | PhD in Parenting — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:41:57 +0000

[...] I have good reasons for it and I won’t let other people call me a bad mother for doing it (so there Ontario coroner). var addthis_pub = ‘phdinparenting’; var addthis_language = ‘en’;var addthis_options = ‘email, [...]

By: Which is more dangerous: co-sleeping or infant formula? - Parenting: Curious Dad

Which is more dangerous: co-sleeping or infant formula? - Parenting: Curious Dad — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 04:09:23 +0000

[...] But I think there's a real flaw in the logic of her most recent post criticizing the Ontario coroner for advising parents against letting their children sleep with them. [...]

By: Sam

Sam — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 19:01:26 +0000

@Sarah V
I am glad your research brought you to a choice that worked for you. As you say “**my** research” and it is indeed the research you have done. As you don’t know what research I have used (and I do work in such an environment where I have access to a considerable number of studies too) I don’t know that it is fair for you to assume you have “checked out the same sources” I have “or equivalent.” As I stated above, you did what was best for YOUR family and that is all a parent can be expected to do.
I don’t intend to continue to debate this with you. I support that you have done what you felt it was best to do. I did what I felt was best to do. In all, I think Annie has had the best final word on this topic.

By: Sarah V.

Sarah V. — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 18:29:08 +0000

Sam: I chose to read every bit of research I could lay my hands on on the subject. I read the ones that pro-bedsharers told me supported their argument, and I’d be willing to bet that I’ve checked out the same sources as you have or equivalents. I also tried to find the highest-quality research I could in this area, which meant case-control studies (studies directly comparing SIDS and non-SIDS babies). I’ve got hold of every one of those that I could find. The reason I ‘happen to trust’ the source they came from – PubMed – is because it’s the internationally used method of filing all peer-reviewed studies, and looking on there is the best way to get a full picture of the good-quality research done in any area. I checked out the pro-bedsharing arguments very carefully and found that they were consistently using poorer-quality research.

Believe me when I say that I do not have an anti-bedsharing axe to grind. I had one of those babies who wouldn’t settle in a crib, and I did sleep with him from the time he was a few days old. I found it an absolute sanity-saver and the one thing that made those early months of motherhood manageable and bearable. I loved bedsharing and really looked forward to doing the same thing with my second child. When I had to face the fact that my research was leading me to the conclusion that this was a less safe way of doing things, I really didn’t want to believe it at first – I wanted to back away from the whole subject and keep believing what suited me. But I did my best to read the research with as open and impartial a mind as I could possibly manage, and I could not, in all honesty, deny what it showed.

By: Sam

Sam — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 14:18:34 +0000

@ Sarah V
I am glad that it sounds as though you were able to make the best decisions for your family based on the research that **you** found which supported **your** feelings and which were supplied by sources **you** happen to trust. I personally have never found such evidence (at least, not provided by sources that **I** would trust). In fact, according to sources **I** trust implicitly, I have only ever read that bed-sharing – when done properly – is **the** safest place for a baby to sleep (newborn or otherwise) due in part to the way moms and babies share breathing patterns, babies respond to the smell and touch of their mother and the way that body heat is more easily able to be regulated.
Ultimately there are statistics and information sources available to support ALL sides of any argument and sleep/bed-sharing can be debated until everyone is “blue in the face” without either side being able to change the mind’s of the other. That’s okay. We just need to be willing to follow our hearts after doing *our* research and parent *our* children in the best way we know how. Your way is right for you. That doesn’t mean that the stats and reports *I* read are wrong; they are just different.
Your babies are lucky that you read and try to do the very best you can for them. My babies are also very lucky that I do the same, even when my path is different.

PS – Be careful how you word things. I would suggest that it be said that “parents do have a right to know what MY research – the research **I** have chosen to read – says about the safest ways of doing things.”

By: Sarah V.

Sarah V. — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 07:37:29 +0000

Annie: Again, the same considerations apply to advocating breastfeeding over formula-feeding. Health considerations aren’t the only ones we take into account when making our decisions about how to do something, and, if a mother is having major problems with breastfeeding that are affecting her relationship with her baby or her ability to care for the rest of her family, then formula-feeding may well be best for that individual woman. Despite knowing that, I don’t have a problem with the ‘breast is best’ message on the level of public health messages, because I do think that in a more generalised sense it is true.

Likewise, if a baby absolutely won’t sleep in a crib no matter what you try, then optimised bedsharing may be better for that particular family than having the parents reduced to exhausted wrecks. Public health information on both topics should be put across in such a way as to avoid placing blame on the shoulders of parents who end up doing things in a less than ideal way, and to avoid exaggerating the risks associated with the other method – I certainly don’t think it’s called for to refer to the alternatives as dangerous or inferior or the other sorts of highly pejorative terms that come up in these contexts. But my main point here is that public health information does have to make parents aware of the fact that there does appear to be a small increased risk associated with crib sharing in the early months even when efforts are made to make it safer. Regardless of how that point is phrased, it does need to be in there, because parents do have a right to know what the research says about the safest ways of doing things.

By: phdinparenting

phdinparenting — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 00:03:03 +0000

@ Sarah V. If we are going to be picky about language here, then it is important to note that "safest" isn't necessarily "best". The benefits of bed sharing need to be weighed against any potential increased risk. If safety was the only consideration in life, I would stay home every day. Too dangerous to leave the house. I would certainly never get in a car.

By: Sarah V.

Sarah V. — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 22:46:14 +0000

Annie: In fact, it’s much less likely to be ‘the opposite’, because the researchers in most of the studies checked out the original reports on all of the SIDS cases they studied quite carefully (looking at police reports of the original scene, etc.). So, if smothering deaths while bedsharing were getting misdiagnosed as SIDS cases, that would generally be picked up by the researchers who then wouldn’t have included those cases. If SIDS deaths while bedsharing were getting misdiagnosed as smothering cases, then that generally *wouldn’t* be picked up in those sorts of studies. (The Blair et al study from 1999 is an exception, by the way – they checked out all sudden unexpected infant deaths to come up with a subset of SIDS cases.) So, it’s much more likely that the research would be underestimating the strength of a SIDS-bedsharing link than overestimating it.

I completely agree with you that we shouldn’t ‘vilify’ parents who do things in a less-than-optimal way, whether it’s bedsharing in the early months, formula-feeding, or any of the other imperfect behaviours parents manage along the way. I’m talking about *informing* parents. There is good evidence suggesting an increased risk with bedsharing in the early months no matter how safe you try to make it, so parents should be told that crib sleeping is best (at least in the early months) in the same way that they’re told that breastfeeding is best. I agree that parents should also be advised on how to minimise bedsharing risk in cases where they do bedshare, but I also think that this should be done in a context of making it clear that crib sleeping is still the optimum method to choose wherever this is feasible.