(replying to Michelle Johnson's post, 9th April - sorry, didn't have time to reply till now)

Bedsharing research is a particular interest of mine. Don't know whether it's any help to you, but I've written a summary of the evidence on bedsharing and SIDS, with an analysis of why people have managed to reach polarised positions in the debate: http://parentingmythsandfacts.com/2011/12/15/the-truth-about-bedsharing-risks-and-why-it-may-not-be-what-you-think/. You might find that useful.

As far as resources for parents go, the best one I've found is the UNICEF leaflet: http://www.unicef.org.uk/Documents/Baby_Friendly/Leaflets/caringatnight_web.pdf. 

Some points I think it's worth being aware of in some of the sources that have been given so far:
Do note that some people use 'co-sleeping' to refer specifically to bedsharing and some use it to include use of a cot next to the bed; this can cause confusion in interpreting some of the writings on this issue. James McKenna, in particular, uses it in the latter sense, and I think that does cause people who use it in the former sense to believe that he's coming out more strongly in favour of bedsharing than in fact is actually the case. If you read the 'Why Babies Should Never Sleep Alone' article carefully, he's actually quite equivocal on bedsharing, and that kind of gets lost in his enthusiastic (and entirely correct) defence of co-sleeping in the more general sense. Similarly, I found the way that Kathleen Kendal-Tackett's leaflet talked about 'sleeping near your baby' and 'sleeping with your baby' to be somewhat unclear in differentiating between the two. (I didn't have a problem following what she meant, but if I was a sleep-deprived new parent with no previous knowledge of the issue, I think I'd have been left with a fairly inaccurate view of the risks from that leaflet.)

Most of the sources didn't that several studies have shown bedsharing in the early months of life to be a risk factor. Given how consistent the evidence on that one is across studies, I think that does need to be taken into account and not simply glossed over. It's a tiny risk in practice and I think completely reasonable for a mother to weigh up pros and cons and decide she wants to take the risk in view of the possible advantages of bedsharing, but that's not the same as trying to deny or ignore that there's a risk there in the first place.

The Fox News programme – long time since I've seen this, but, IIRC, it was an uncritical citing of McKenna's theory that the bedsharing-SIDS link applied only to formula-feeding mothers. That theory's since been disproved by the meta-analysis in the BMJ last year, which showed that feeding method didn't interact with bedsharing risk. (For this reason, I also can't agree with McKenna's claim on his site that formula-feeding mothers should never bedshare – the evidence simply doesn't support that being a contraindication, and putting unnecessary barriers in the way of bedsharing only increases the risk of inadvertently unsafe situations occurring. The rest of his advice on safe sleep is good, though.)

Hope that's some help.

Best wishes,

Dr Sarah Vaughan
MBChB MRCGP

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