I had a recent encounter with a Department of Child and Family Services worker
who had investigated a number SIDS deaths in which the baby and mother were
sleeping together.  She was adamant that mothers should be warned not to sleep
with their babies. The babies had apparently suffocated.  I expounded on the
fact that co-sleeping seemed to decrease the incidence of SIDS, and helped
mother-baby breastfeeding dyads.
        On close questioning, she realized that most of these deaths had been
situations where baby slipped between cushions on a couch or where two beds
had been pushed together and the baby slipped between the mattresses.  Those
are the things that should be warned about, not co-sleeping!.....V. Nichols-
Johnson, MD