My local newspaper published an in-depth investigative series last summer on
co-sleeping deaths that get classified as SIDS.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/sids/

The data from several years of autopsy reports do demonstrate that unsafe
co-sleeping is risky; I was surprised by how *few* of the SIDS cases
involved cribs used as prescribed.

Unfortunately, the entire narrative of the series was framed around the
single goal of discrediting the state medical examiner, on the grounds that
his too-liberal application of SIDS as cause of death has prevented
investigation and prosecution of child abuse and homicide cases.

Despite interviewing Dr. McKenna and speaking with local IBCLCs and
breastfeeding advocates, the editors refused to credit the idea that
co-sleeping has benefits and can be done safely.  They even presented a
bed-sharing death of a breastfed infant with middle-class, educated parents
-- and blamed her death on fluffy comforters rather than on the foam wedge
that had been marketed to her parents as a way to keep their baby safe in
their bed.

It is always disappointing to see breastfeeding advocates dismissed yet
again as fanatical and single-minded.  In this series, however, the truly
alarming thing was that the entire project was geared towards making it
easier for the state to prosecute parents when their babies die in an adult
bed.

I am sorely tempted to send this week's study linking co-sleeping with
longer duration of breastfeeding to the journalist who interviewed me for
that series.  (I didn't make the final cut, but the paper did run a
letter-to-the-editor that I wrote later.)

--Rebecca N. Ruhlen, PhD, LLLL
Davidson, North Carolina

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