You may find this interesting -
Gail Hertz, MD, IBCLC

Cosleeping on Sofa Found to Increase SIDS Risk


WESTPORT, Dec 03 (Reuters Health) - Infants who sleep with their parents on
a sofa are at "...a particularly high" risk for sudden infant death syndrome
(SIDS), according to results of a study published in the December 4th issue
of the British Medical Journal.
The study also found that infants who share a bed with their parents may not
be at increased risk for the syndrome "...per se", but rather individual
circumstances, such as maternal alcohol consumption and smoking history,
parental tiredness, and the use of blankets conspire to increase risk.
Dr. Peter Blair, from the Royal Hospital for Children in Bristol, England,
and colleagues there and elsewhere compared the sleeping habits of 325
babies aged 1 week to 1 year who died from SIDS with 1,300 controls in a
3-year, population-based case-control study.
Abstracting data collected from a questionnaire distributed to the infants'
families, the investigators found that 6.4% of infants who slept with their
parents on a sofa died compared with 0.5% of controls. These children, the
researchers write, represent "...a particularly high and previously
unrecognised risk of sudden infant death syndrome."
The study results also showed that 16.9% of babies categorized as "usual bed
sharers" died from SIDS, compared with 5.9% of controls. The researchers
also found that infants who were taken into their parents' bed from their
cribs temporarily were not at an increased risk for SIDS if they were put
back in their cribs for the duration of their sleep.
Past or current maternal smoking was also found to be a SIDS risk factor.
In addition, a multivariate analysis of sleep habits showed that "maternal
alcohol consumption," "parental tiredness," "[household] overcrowding" and
use of a blanket all contributed to the risk of SIDS.
"Our results suggest that...perhaps it is not bed sharing per se that is
hazardous but rather the particular circumstance in which bed sharing
occurs," the authors conclude. "That some of these circumstances may be
modifiable has important implications in terms of social policy and health
education."
Dr. Ed Mitchell of the University of Auckland, in New Zealand, believes that
maternal smoking, not cosleeping on a sofa, is the greater risk factor for
SIDS. In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Mitchell writes that while the
investigators observed an increased risk of SIDS among infants who slept
with their parents on a sofa, they found no additional risk either in
infants who shared a bed with a nonsmoking mother, or in infants who slept
in their parents' bed temporarily.
"In contrast," Dr. Mitchell writes, "23.4% of deaths in [this] study
occurred among co-sleeping infants of mothers who smoke.... It is time to
recommend that mothers who smoke should not share a bed with their babies."
BMJ 1999;319:1457-1462.

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