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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