In the UK, the anti-bed-sharing campaign is very strong. I speak to
health visitors and midwives from different parts of the country, and
their local employers may *require* them to give explicit
instructions to families not to bed-share. This makes it very
difficult for individual practitioners to help parents make an
informed choice.
When a baby dies and there is an inquest, it's not uncommon for the
coroner to make a statement reported in the newspapers that 'parents
should be told not to share a bed with their baby' ( yes, even when
the baby has died on a sofa) and I suspect there is, as a result,
some pro-active pre-empting of criticism in the local policies - 'our
healthcare workers must give out these instructions not to bed share
so when the next tragedy occurs, any worker asked to give evidence
at the inquest will be able to say the mother was told not to do it.'
This transcript of a radio programme has Peter Fleming, one of the
major researchers in this area, giving a much more nuanced account of
the situation, and speaking out very clearly that parents should be
told about the risks of sleeping on a sofa:
"....sofas are extremely dangerous places to fall asleep with babies.
Sadly one of the reasons that we found in some of our studies that
mothers sometimes fall asleep on the sofa is that somebody's told
them not to take the baby to bed with them, so they get up to feed on
the sofa and fall asleep there, which is 25 times as dangerous as
taking the baby into bed."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/casenotes_tr_20090113.shtml
I often take calls from mothers in despair at their baby's night
waking - of course I discuss sleeping place with them, and I have a
UNICEF factsheet on safe-cosleeping which I always email them. Often,
they are *terrified* of sharing a bed - they check none of the boxes
for alcohol, drugs, tobacco, and they are (usually ) fully
breastfeeding. But they are very, very scared of sharing a bed :(
Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc, tutor, UK
--
http://www.heatherwelford.co.uk
http://heatherwelford.posterous.com
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