>        Kathy Dettwyler posted that lowest incidence of SIDS is in
breastfeeding /
>co-sleeping babies.  Do you have a reference for this??

Yes, read the chapter by McKenna and Bernshaw from Breastfeeding:
Biocultural Perspectives, and/or McKenna's research in anthropological and
medical journals.  See also Dr. William Sears' popular book on "Protecting
Your Baby from SIDS" (paraphrasing the title).

  Personally, I find
>the co-sleeping issue very difficult.  I've read some disturbing coroner's
>reports of infant deaths  by "overlying" ( often initially misdiagnosed as
>SIDS).

Yes, sometimes parents accidentally suffocate their babies when co-sleeping,
and sometimes they purposefully kill their babies by suffocating them and
then claim it was an accident.  The coroners have no way (usually) of
determining if a particular case is infanticide.  Parents find a variety of
ways to kill their infants (did you all recently read about the man who put
anti-freeze in the baby's bottle of formula?  Actually, I don't think that
baby died.  Anyway....)

Yes, there are safe ways to co-sleep and not-so-safe ways to co-sleep.  You
shouldn't co-sleep on a water bed or a really soft mattress.  You shouldn't
co-sleep if you abuse drugs or alcohol.  You shouldn't co-sleep if you're
one of those people who don't wake up for earthquakes.

For what it's worth, the baby who dies in "Rocking the Babies" is lying
asleep on its mother's chest, while mother is leaning back in a chair or on
a couch.   She wakes up to find it dead.  So no possibility of overlying.
Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Anthropology and Nutrition
Texas A&M University