Your question piqued my interest as I try to see every SIDS study I can that 
relates to bed sharing or breastfeeding. Of course that statement means that 
97% of babies dying from SIDS were not bedsharing at the time. (eeks, get 
that baby into your bed!) 

I sure can't find anything with these together in Medline, CDC/NIH, or on web. 
That is the usual number quoted for SIDS in 2001 in US. Also, there was a 
CPSC warning on bed sharing in 1999 saying 64 babies per year die of 
suffocation or strangulation. I really think that someone put these two 
statements together. I corresponded with one of our LACTNETers a while back 
who finally called CDC and it seems that they actually have no idea how many 
SIDS deaths are in cribs or are cosleeping at the time of death. I could only 
find a couple small studies that had any such measurements, but then going 
back to that 1999 report (and I've inserted many comments):

"Of the 515 deaths [[in 1990 through 1997, so among some 18,000 SIDS 
cases]], 121 were reported to be due to a parent, caregiver or sibling 
[[usually not the mom and almost never a sober parent where bed sharing is 
customary]] rolling on top of or against the baby while sleeping [[most often 
on a couch]]. More than three-quarters of these deaths occurred to infants 
younger than 3 months. The other 394 deaths resulted from suffocation or 
from strangulation caused by entrapment of the child's head in various 
structures of the bed....  296 were on adult beds..."

I once called CDC about that study to ask where all the couch deaths are and 
it seems they were included in the adult bed number--or maybe not--I never 
could get it clear. Now the term "adult surface" is more correctly used. A large 
percentage of adult surface deaths and cosleeping deaths are in sofas.

Clearly, adult beds need to be made into safe surfaces though the presence of 
a parent provides much safety already (most adult bed deaths have no parent 
present).

Best, linda 
linda palmer, dc
author "Baby Matters"


On Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:45:58 +1000, Denise Fisher <denise@HEALTH-E-
LEARNING.COM> wrote:

>I'm looking for a reference for the following. Can anyone help me out?
>"In 2001 2,236 infants died from SIDS in the USA and 64 of these babies
>were bedsharing with their parents."
>
>Thank you.
>Denise

             ***********************************************

Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]
Mail all list management commands to: [log in to unmask]
COMMANDS:
1. To temporarily stop your subscription write in the body of an email: set lactnet nomail
2. To start it again: set lactnet mail
3. To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
4. To get a comprehensive list of rules and directions: get lactnet welcome