Becky asked about co-sleeping policies in hospitals.

Here in the UK mum-baby bed-sharing on the delivery or post-natal ward is
referred to as 'bedding-in' -- I suppose to correspond with 'rooming-in' --
so this might be a search term you could try. That said, I know there is
very little published literature on bedding-in, as to date there has been
almost no research on bedding-in -- a situation I hope to soon alleviate
(after months of preparation, ethics approvals, hospital permissions etc. I
actually began yesterday to recruit mums to a hospital bedding-in study here
in UK).

Bedding-in (and bed-sharing generally) seems to be much less controversial
in UK than US (although it still has its opponents), and a growing number of
hospitals (esp Baby Friendly Hospitals) have or are developing bedding-in
policies. (I know because I get many requests to provide information, or to
review drafts.)  Last year I wrote a section for a publication by the Royal
College of Midwives on bedsharing, which included maternity unit guidelines,
and suggestions to be provided for parents at home. The publication is
called "Midwifery Practice in the Postnatal Period" (ISBN 1870822048) and
can be obtained from the RCM publishing department. I am happy to provide
copies of the section I wrote.

I also recently helped UNICEF UK BFI's co-ordinators with a sample
bedding-in policy that is now available on their web-site (as of this week).
The URL is http://www.babyfriendly.org.uk/bedshare.htm The liability issue
is not really a big deal in the UK (yet?), so these sources won't provide
everything you need, however they might be a place to start and help avoid
reinventing some wheels.

Regards, Helen
___________
Dr Helen L. Ball
Director, Parent-Infant Sleep Lab,
Department of Anthropology, University of Durham, UK

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