>We seem to have a few cases yearly of infant deaths while sleeping with
>parents.

In the U.S an average of seven *thousand* babies die alone in cribs of SIDS.
The cases of babies dying while sleeping with others each year generally
numbers in the *tens* which includes drunk parents, waterbeds, accidentally
falling asleep on recliners, etc. Co-sleeping has been reported (by Sears,
McKenna, etc.) to be potentially protective against SIDS.

>I just did a well-baby exam a few weeks ago on an apparently healthy one month
old.
>Parents fell asleep with him in bed - woke up with him pressed between
>them - not breathing.

As awful as this is, I would call it a "fluke" and completely atypical of
co-sleeping (or did you mean that the baby was fine, and the parents were
merely mentioning that this happened and they revived him?) One instance
like this should not cause a hcp to give parenting advice as drastic as "you
shouldn't co-sleep".

There are less safe ways to co-leep, but there are less safe ways of doing
everything with children - feeding, driving, etc. Instead, I would give
parents pointers on how to co-sleep. Here are some good examples:

http://www.naturalchild.com/jan_hunt/familybed.html
http://www.nd.edu/~alfac/mckenna/

When you consider that in one car seat model alone (the Evenflo Joyride)
there have already been 271 accidents from parents carrying the baby in it
yet no one is saying "don't carry your baby in a plastic capsule/ carseat"
it seems strange that a few fluke incidents would cause this publication to
declare co-sleeping as "out" as bellybutton rings. Unless the publication is
selling something. Cribs and bedding and baby superstores are BIG business.
Huge.

Michelle DePesa

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