Co-sleeping: Is It Dangerous?
Parents who sleep with their children were rocked by the September 29th 1999 statement released by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) regarding infant co-sleeping. Contained within was a blanket recommendation that infants sleep alone, to guard them against being smothered by the bed-clothes, their sleeping mothers, or other family members in the bed. Pardon my use of the vernacular, but WHAT IS UP WITH THAT?! Since when has Mom been a Consumer Product?
Saying that babies should eschew their parents’ bed in favor of a crib is like saying that “everyone should travel by car because planes crash on occasion”. Everyone knows that one’s chance of dying in a car wreck are vastly greater than one’s chance of dying in a plane crash. It’s just that plane wrecks are so much more dramatic, attracting the attention of the media, just as these titillating co-sleeping “statistics” have attracted the media’s attention now. (Please note that technically the CPSC produced no statistics, merely anecdotal evidence.)
Babies who sleep with their mothers are safer than babies who sleep alone. According to eminent sleep researcher Dr. James McKenna, out of Notre Dame, there is every indication that rates of SIDS deaths will be lower in co-sleeping infants. (1) The CPSC itself issues recalls for cribs regularly because of the babies who are injured and killed by cribs and crib accessories. According to their own statistics 9,664 infants were injured in crib related accidents in 1996 and 54 babies died. (2) Why weren’t those figures brought forth at the time of this press release so parents could make a real comparison between solitary sleep and co-sleeping for their children? The industry keeps making cribs “safer” and “safer”. The CPSC keeps producing more and more stringent guidelines for manufacturers, and babies are still getting hurt. Could it be that no crib is as safe as a Mama who is right there?
How many children a year die in fires because they were sleeping in separate rooms from their parents? When children die of smoke inhalation or burn up, as seems to happen several times a winter in my state alone, you hear everyone in the community say “what a terrible tragedy!”, which of course it is. But what you never hear is “that was a preventable accident. If only they had been a co-sleeping family, the baby would have gotten out with the parents.” Remember that huge push by the Consumer Product Safety Commission ten years ago to enforce fire proof pajama guidelines because of all the children who were burning to death or being horribly disfigured by fire in the night? Did the Consumer Product Safety Commission ever consider that it was western culture’s practice of putting babies elsewhere to sleep that necessitated the fire- proof pajamas in the first place?
All over the USA, more and more people are catching on, trusting their inner wisdom, and bringing baby to bed. Infants have been sleeping in the arms of their mothers for millennia, and they still do in most of the cultures all over the world. Whether you believe in God or evolution, babies are not designed physically, psychologically or emotionally to sleep alone. Most of the developmental psychology and all the sleep study data of the last ten years points to that fact. Even Dr. Richard Ferber, celebrated infant sleep guru, who for years pushed sleep training (a method of “training” babies to sleep alone), has recanted on his statement that: "Sleeping alone is an important part of his (baby’s) learning to be able to separate from you without anxiety and to see himself as an individual.” He now takes the position that “There’s plenty of examples of co-sleeping where it works out just fine. My feeling now is that children can sleep with or without their parents.” (3).
What is the chance that the COLOSSUS that is the baby accessory industry is pulling strings at the CPSC to do something because the current trend towards co-sleeping is cutting into their bottom line. What? You mean you don’t need a crib? or a bumper? or a spinning music and lights whirligig, or, or, or. You mean I don’t have to turn my sewing room into a nursery? Parents are saving a bundle by not buying junk they don’t need. And they are sleeping better with happier babies, while the co-sleeping trend continues to grow, as I believe it will despite this recent flap.
These are the guidelines that all parents contemplating co-sleeping should know. The contraindications, published by Northwest Attachment Parenting, for sharing sleep with a baby are as follows:
1. Never sleep with a baby if you have been drinking or using drugs. This includes over- the-counter cold medications or any medication that makes you drowsy and less easy to rouse.
2. Never put your baby to sleep on a water-bed or other soft surface.
3. Put baby to sleep on the other side of mom, away from dad and/or other siblings.
4. Smokers should not sleep with babies because the toxins that remain on their clothes and skin may increase the risk of S.I.D.S.
5. Mothers who are extremely obese should avoid sleep sharing.
I note that the information released by the CPSC did not contain details about the deaths in question, so we have no way of knowing which of the above factors might have been involved.
There has been a recent media push to educate parents on proper installation of infant car seats because when a car seat is installed incorrectly, it is more likely that the occupant will be injured or killed in an accident. You hear no one crying for the abolition of the car seat when an infant dies as a result of improper installation. What if the public were educated on how to share sleep safely with children instead of having to endure some sort of blanket mandate, a scare tactic that implies that parents are not capable of weighing unbiased and complete information, in order to make informed decisions for their own families?
1. McKenna, James, “Rethinking Healthy Infant Sleep”
2. CSPC, gathered by the National Electronic Surveillance System
3. Seabrook, John, “Sleeping With the Baby”, The New Yorker, Nov 8, 1999
Parents who sleep with their children were rocked by the September 29th 1999 statement released by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) regarding infant co-sleeping. Contained within was a blanket recommendation that infants sleep alone, to guard them against being smothered by the bed-clothes, their sleeping mothers, or other family members in the bed. Pardon my use of the vernacular, but WHAT IS UP WITH THAT?! Since when has Mom been a Consumer Product?
Saying that babies should eschew their parents’ bed in favor of a crib is like saying that “everyone should travel by car because planes crash on occasion”. Everyone knows that one’s chance of dying in a car wreck are vastly greater than one’s chance of dying in a plane crash. It’s just that plane wrecks are so much more dramatic, attracting the attention of the media, just as these titillating co-sleeping “statistics” have attracted the media’s attention now. (Please note that technically the CPSC produced no statistics, merely anecdotal evidence.)
Babies who sleep with their mothers are safer than babies who sleep alone. According to eminent sleep researcher Dr. James McKenna, out of Notre Dame, there is every indication that rates of SIDS deaths will be lower in co-sleeping infants. (1) The CPSC itself issues recalls for cribs regularly because of the babies who are injured and killed by cribs and crib accessories. According to their own statistics 9,664 infants were injured in crib related accidents in 1996 and 54 babies died. (2) Why weren’t those figures brought forth at the time of this press release so parents could make a real comparison between solitary sleep and co-sleeping for their children? The industry keeps making cribs “safer” and “safer”. The CPSC keeps producing more and more stringent guidelines for manufacturers, and babies are still getting hurt. Could it be that no crib is as safe as a Mama who is right there?
How many children a year die in fires because they were sleeping in separate rooms from their parents? When children die of smoke inhalation or burn up, as seems to happen several times a winter in my state alone, you hear everyone in the community say “what a terrible tragedy!”, which of course it is. But what you never hear is “that was a preventable accident. If only they had been a co-sleeping family, the baby would have gotten out with the parents.” Remember that huge push by the Consumer Product Safety Commission ten years ago to enforce fire proof pajama guidelines because of all the children who were burning to death or being horribly disfigured by fire in the night? Did the Consumer Product Safety Commission ever consider that it was western culture’s practice of putting babies elsewhere to sleep that necessitated the fire- proof pajamas in the first place?
All over the USA, more and more people are catching on, trusting their inner wisdom, and bringing baby to bed. Infants have been sleeping in the arms of their mothers for millennia, and they still do in most of the cultures all over the world. Whether you believe in God or evolution, babies are not designed physically, psychologically or emotionally to sleep alone. Most of the developmental psychology and all the sleep study data of the last ten years points to that fact. Even Dr. Richard Ferber, celebrated infant sleep guru, who for years pushed sleep training (a method of “training” babies to sleep alone), has recanted on his statement that: "Sleeping alone is an important part of his (baby’s) learning to be able to separate from you without anxiety and to see himself as an individual.” He now takes the position that “There’s plenty of examples of co-sleeping where it works out just fine. My feeling now is that children can sleep with or without their parents.” (3).
What is the chance that the COLOSSUS that is the baby accessory industry is pulling strings at the CPSC to do something because the current trend towards co-sleeping is cutting into their bottom line. What? You mean you don’t need a crib? or a bumper? or a spinning music and lights whirligig, or, or, or. You mean I don’t have to turn my sewing room into a nursery? Parents are saving a bundle by not buying junk they don’t need. And they are sleeping better with happier babies, while the co-sleeping trend continues to grow, as I believe it will despite this recent flap.
These are the guidelines that all parents contemplating co-sleeping should know. The contraindications, published by Northwest Attachment Parenting, for sharing sleep with a baby are as follows:
1. Never sleep with a baby if you have been drinking or using drugs. This includes over- the-counter cold medications or any medication that makes you drowsy and less easy to rouse.
2. Never put your baby to sleep on a water-bed or other soft surface.
3. Put baby to sleep on the other side of mom, away from dad and/or other siblings.
4. Smokers should not sleep with babies because the toxins that remain on their clothes and skin may increase the risk of S.I.D.S.
5. Mothers who are extremely obese should avoid sleep sharing.
I note that the information released by the CPSC did not contain details about the deaths in question, so we have no way of knowing which of the above factors might have been involved.
There has been a recent media push to educate parents on proper installation of infant car seats because when a car seat is installed incorrectly, it is more likely that the occupant will be injured or killed in an accident. You hear no one crying for the abolition of the car seat when an infant dies as a result of improper installation. What if the public were educated on how to share sleep safely with children instead of having to endure some sort of blanket mandate, a scare tactic that implies that parents are not capable of weighing unbiased and complete information, in order to make informed decisions for their own families?
1. McKenna, James, “Rethinking Healthy Infant Sleep”
2. CSPC, gathered by the National Electronic Surveillance System
3. Seabrook, John, “Sleeping With the Baby”, The New Yorker, Nov 8, 1999
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