> Sue Jacoby wrote:

> > <If you did none of the above, and you breastfeed, take your baby to
bed!  It's protective for SIDS>

Sarah Vaughan wrote:
> 
> Unfortunately, the evidence doesn't support this. Bedsharing in the early
> months of life consistently comes out as a risk factor in studies even
> when allowing for risks such as smoking/drinking/sofa sleeping. See
> http://parentingmythsandfacts.com/2011/12/15/the-truth-about-bedsharing-
> risks-and-why-it-may-not-be-what-you-think/, where I've written about
> this in a lot more detail.

Lara Hopkins wrote: None of this, as far as I can see in your post, mentions properly
controlling for breastfeeding, let alone for true exclusive
breastfeeding. Was that done, with rigorous definitions and careful
interviewing?

<replying> 

The best available evidence on the effect of bedsharing in breastfeeding mums is http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/5/e002299.full , which looked specifically at the risk in breastfeeding mums when allowing for other risk factors, and still found an increase in SIDS risk for young babies who bedshare as compared to room sharing. It didn't control for amount of breastfeeding, but it's hard to see why that would make enough of a difference to eliminate all risk. 

(Obviously, at this point you're talking about extremely small absolute risks anyway; I don't agree with the 'never bedshare' conclusion that the authors of the article have reached. However, the evidence clearly doesn't support bedsharing being something we should advocate as protective against SIDS.)


Best wishes,

Sarah

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