I am having a hard time understanding this mentality of legislating normal
human behavior.  My goodness! Mothers have been sleeping with their babies since
the beginning of man.  How on earth do you make it illegal to be a mammal?
Yes, we should cosleep safely.  Yes, some babies will die of SIDS while
cosleeping, and even yes, some parents or others will roll over on their babies.
This is horrible and sad. In the case of SIDS, I don't think there is any way to
*prove* that the baby cosleeping with mother would not have died from SIDS
alone in a crib across the hall.  And, since it is just as likely that a baby
dying of SIDS next to his mother would also have died alone down the hall, I am
even more convinced cosleeping is the better choice.  For those who have roll
over 'accidents' I am still pondering the possibility mentioned by James
McKenna that this is not necessarily a complete 'accident'.  Also, even so, it could
be prevented with better safe sleeping education.  As for the connection to
breastfeeding, I am wondering how much this is altered without breastfeeding.
Do mothers who are not breastfeeding have the same connection in terms of
biological response to cosleeping as non breastfeeding mothers?  Is the risk
factor of not breastfeeding compounded when cosleeping without the added hormonal
and biological responses of breastfeeding?  Still, since we are not 100% sure
of what causes SIDS, unless it can be proven completely that a baby who has
died of SIDS would have not died sleeping elsewhere, as morbid as the thought is,
I prefer to think of a baby dying beside his mother than to think of him all
alone in the dark in his crib in his own room.  And, what of those families
who lose a child to SIDS in the crib across the hall---who go in after 'sleeping
through the night' only to find their child has died, how much consolation is
it to them that their baby was 'on his back in his crib'.  Please.  This is a
ridiculous idea for legislation.  I am horrified that it is even being
considered.  Maybe we should also consider arresting the mothers who smoked during
pregnancy and all family members smoking in the home?  The risk of smoking is
also considered very real...but I guess the money of the tobacco companies is
more than the money of the crib manufacturers and the crib manufacturers want
to see the requirement of their products while tobacco doesn't want to be
linked to illegal behavior.  I can see this being used against breastfeeding:
"Breastfeeding causes mothers to become sleepy and risk falling asleep with thier
babies and facing prosecution.  Formula feed your baby to assure long sleep
stretches and eliminate any risk of feeding in your bed and the possible risk of
criminally sleeping with your baby."   Yep, this can fit nicely on an add
spread with a happy baby sleeping on his back in a crib with a well decorated
nursery with all its trimmings while mommy and daddy sleep happily in the
beautiful child free bed.

Good luck stopping this nonsense!
Pam MazzellaDiBosco
FL, USA



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