Dear Colleagues,
I have been thinking about this for quite a while but don't have the 
time or energy to figure it out myself.
Practicing skin to skin (which means mothers could and do fall asleep 
with their babies) and bed sharing very much facilitate breastfeeding. 
Yet, we are so afraid of babies dying in bed with their mothers.
How many breastfeeding babies actually do die in beds with their mothers 
when mothers are practicing the safe sleep seven and then what I really 
want to know is how many babies die from not being breastfed? Let's just 
stick to the USA.
I know this is not exactly a one to one ratio but it seems as though 
skin to skin and bed sharing really support and promote breastfeeding 
but then we tell mothers never to do it. How many stop breastfeeding 
because it is too hard to get up all those times at night? Not to 
mention the way bed sharing supports on demand breastfeeding and I bet 
keeps everyone's oxytocin high. Keeps milk supplies high.
If more babies are dying from not being breastfed maybe bed sharing is a 
lesser risk?
Please don't think I am being cavalier. I am not. I work in private 
practice so people are usually bed sharing or not when they come to me 
so I don't have to struggle with many of the political issues that you 
do because of working in a hospital or public health.
I just hear us talking about the importance of skin to skin in the 
beginning to get breastfeeding started. It  has recently occurred to me, 
skin to skin is really quite like bed sharing, we are just not calling 
it that in the first days or weeks, but then we are saying bed sharing 
is dangerous for breastfeeding dyads. Yes, apparently we would like 
someone "watching" the mother and baby for danger when babies are skin 
to skin, but if it is so important to promote breastfeeding, why are we 
then condemning it later on when it may be equally important?
So again the question, how many exclusively breastfeeding babies whose 
families are practicing the safe sleep seven die in bed compared to the 
number of babies who die because they were not breastfed in the USA?
Thank you!

Barbara Robertson, MA, IBCLC, RLC
The Breastfeeding Center of Ann Arbor
bfcaa.com

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