Thought you all would be interested.
Ellen
Health - Reuters
Infant-Adult Bed Sharing Becoming More Common in US
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By Charnicia E. Huggins
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Infant-adult bed sharing is growing more
popular in the United States, though the jury is still out on whether or
not the practice poses any danger to infants, a team of researchers
reports.
The controversial practice is supported by some experts who believe bed
sharing can protect infants from sudden infant death syndrome and develop
children's capacity for trust and intimacy, but decried by those who
believe it can have implications for the child's psychosexual development
and increase the risk of smothering or other physical dangers.
A recent 18-year follow-up study found that parent-child bed sharing was
not associated with any great positive or negative long-term effects.
"The increasing trend shows there is something in the social milieu that
makes it acceptable and desirable to do," Dr. Marian Willinger of the
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Bethesda,
Maryland, told Reuters Health.
"Because of that we want to make it a safe practice," she added.
Willinger and colleagues conducted annual telephone surveys between 1993
and 2000 with nearly 8,500 nighttime infant caregivers across the United
States.
Overall, almost half (45%) of the infants shared a bed with their caregiver
during the two weeks prior to the interview, the investigators report in
the January issue of the journal Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent
Medicine.
Further, infant bed sharing grew increasingly more common during the study
period, such that 13% of infants "usually" shared an adult bed at night in
2000, in comparison to just 5.5% in 1993. Most of the infants who "usually"
bed shared slept on an adult bed with their parents.
Routine infant bed sharing was most common among black and Asian mothers,
mothers under the age of 18, families with an annual income that fell below
$20,000 and among families with infants younger than 8 weeks, the report
indicates. Infant bed sharing was also more common among families in the
South than in the Midwest.
In contrast, families in the Mid-Atlantic were less likely to report infant
bed sharing than those in the Midwest, and parents of low birthweight or
preterm infants were also less likely to share their beds with their
babies.
"Given the desire by some parents to engage in this practice, more research
is needed to understand the range of practices and their potential benefits
or hazards," the researchers conclude.
One potential hazard, for example, may be related to the finding that
infants who shared an adult bed were more likely to be covered with quilts.
This increases a baby's risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), the
authors note.
"Bed sharing in and of itself is not hazardous," Willinger said. "It is
just the environmental conditions associated with it that can make it
hazardous."
Mothers who sleep on a mattress on the floor should make sure that that
there is no space between the floor and the bed that the baby can fall
into, or "any situation in which there can be an entrapment if the baby
moves or rolls," Willinger said.
Still, for right now there is not enough data to tell parents "no,"
Willinger added, except under certain conditions, such as if the mother
smokes, or if the parents have been drinking or taking drugs that make them
less alert.
SOURCE: Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine 2003;157:33-39,43-49.
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