Nancy Mohrbacher is EXACTLY right once again. Well said!

Currently there seems to be a huge push on the part of some to stamp out all
bedsharing. Not just irresponsible bed-sharing, but ALL bedsharing. In my
city, a police officer wrote a pamphlet designed to "reduce rollover deaths"
in 1997 and was promptly criticized in print for taking such a silly
position. He now has apparently convinced the health district to press this
agenda again. I've spent the past two months reading, studying,
investigating the issue even deeper than I've already done, argued my way
into meetings with the "powers that be," copied articles and brochures from
places that have this figured out better than we do locally, set up an
e-list, and more. This is so silly, yet I feel a very strong need to draw a
line in the sand on this issue. "All" bedsharing isn't dangerous. SOME
conditions increase the risk of bedsharing.

Who is promoting the "all bedsharing is dangerous" concept? Certainly crib
manufacturers. People who don't "get" the importance of touching,
skin-to-skin care, and breastfeeding. Rescue workers who encounter tragedies
like the 300-pound drunk man who trapped a baby between cushions of a couch.
Police officers who investigate infant homicides. People who didn't sleep
with their babies and can't imagine why anyone would. People who don't trust
mothers to do the best for their babies and who pit the mother against the
baby, and vice versa. People who want to write rules for others based on the
exceptions of human behavior.

Who is now in the strange position of defending safe bedsharing? Mothers,
lactation consultants, breastfeeding peer counselors, LLL Leaders, and the
like. Sleep researchers like James McKenna, Helen Ball and Peter Fleming.
The UK BFHI folks. Touch researchers like Tiffany Field. Kangaroo Care
researchers like Gene Cranston Anderson and Nils Bergman. People who can
distinguish irresponsible bedsharing from responsible behavior. People who
understand babies and breastfeeding and the concept of the mother-baby dyad.
People who slept (or still sleep) with their babies and their spouses and
probably their dogs and cats too. And people like me who persist in seeking
to understand and support normal.

Defending the NORMAL way babies evolved!!!  Yikes!  We've had to defend
breastfeeding for WAY too long!

The longer I'm in this work, the more carefully I read research articles,
the more I am amazed by babies and mothers, and the more I trust mothers and
babies to figure out how to live together peacefully and happily.

Happy holidays to all who celebrate in this season.

Linda J. Smith, BSE, FACCE, IBCLC
Bright Future Lactation Resource Centre www.bflrc.com
6540 Cedarview Ct., Dayton, OH 45459-1214 USA
(937) 438-9458 email [log in to unmask]

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