Dear all:

A lull in our NY City economy has provided me with enough time to start tracking down 
some NY City stats.  It appears that the Sleep Alone campaign may be ramping up again -
-- and since most parents assume that means in a room separate from the parents 
instead of don't bed share if you are drunk, abusing drugs, smoking, morbidly obese, 
have sleep apnea etc or if you are doing it on a squishy mattress, couch, water bed or 
with pillows and blankets around the baby.

There have been 10 SIDS deaths in 2006.  A report that I read a few months ago no 
longer appears on the website which attributed some of the deaths in the homeless 
shelter to bed sharing (on reading the report which I can no longer find on the website --- 
it looked like drugs and/or alcohol may have been in the picture).  So, the media and a 
notable local politician got on a kick about "cosleeping" instead of "bedsharing".  The data 
in the report were from 2007 but there are no vital statistics out yet for 2007 to compare 
against.

The number of deaths from necrotizing enterocolitis, respiratory disorders of the newborn 
and pneumonia in 2006 were more than four time higher.

So, after reading every original article I could get my hands on about SIDS --- it dawned 
on me that we have a perfect analogy.  New York City's other campaign for an intimate 
act did not take the approach of suggesting abstinence.  Condom ads are everywhere and 
almost as risky as the Calvin Klein ads. 

So, one of my dear colleagues at Realbirth Stephanie Shaw launched me forward by 
asking "isn't it similar to the issue of safe sex"?

If New York City can be so bold as to promote safe sex, the why can they not promote 
safe cosleeping and bed sharing rather than "Sleeping alone".  Sleeping in a separate 
room from parents had a more than two fold higher risk of SIDS than did bedsharing. 

What most shocked me from the statistics was the MULTIPLICATIVE interaction between 
smoking and bedsharing.  Like so many other effects of smoking --- when combined with 
another factor --- the risks multiply astronomically.

New York City does have a very active and very guilt-inducing stop smoking campaign.

Best, Susan Burger

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