*
Kathleen said:
And while I am mentioning
it, did anyone ever see the Baltimore public service message that was at a
busstop that I saw?  It was a picture of a young girl's face, and she saw
her bed in the background, and the headboard of the bed was a headstone,
and her words (printed ) were " this was his last resting place..." or
something like that.  Really macabre. Talk about instilling fear. I was
horrified, and took a photo of it, which I still have.*
*
*
Kathleen,
I live in the Baltimore area.  In addition to such advertisements, the city
of Baltimore now requires all city hospitals to show a public service video
to new mothers before they can be discharged.  The video contains emotional
testimony from real Baltimore mothers whose babies died while sleeping in
an adult bed.  It does not explain the additional risk factors involved,
including that one of these mothers was a smoker, another lost her baby
while he was sleeping with a non-parental caregiver, and another baby died
while sleeping alone (unattended) in an adult bed.  It also does not
mention how these babies were being fed.

The mothers that I work with at a Baltimore hospital are terrified of
sleeping with their babies.  They tell me that they nurse their babies to
sleep in rocking chairs or on the couch and they admit that they often wind
up falling asleep there themselves.  When I tell them that this is far more
dangerous than creating a safe sleeping space in their own beds, they are
shocked.  They really thought that it was safer to fall asleep nursing on
the couch!  Because I am not an employee of the hospital (I am a
volunteer), I am able to inform these mothers of safe bed-sharing
practices, but the IBCLC who is an employee cannot.

I often refer mothers to http://www.isisonline.org.uk/ or to James
McKenna's Book, "Sleeping With Your Baby," but I am always on the lookout
for additional resources.

-Máire Prabhakar
Mother, volunteer breastfeeding counselor, and student (currently studying
to become an IBCLC)

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