An article in our 'NT News' newspaper last week:

Baby in bed 'may reduce cot death'
London: Taking a crying baby to bed is not only safe but may reduce
the incidence of cot death, British scientists have found.
New research from Durham University found that babies who sleep with
their parents will not become too hot and face minimal risks of being
smothered.
Using special infra red cameras, researchers filmed five English
families for more than 80 hours to capture every phase of their
sleeping patterns.
The findings, which challenge traditional views on co-sleeping,
include the fact that mothers and their babies tend to fall into
complementary slumbers when they are in the same bed.
They also reveal high levels of contact between mother and child - a
key element in bonding.
Lead researcher Dr Helen Hall said that mothers who sleep with their
babies are in physical contact with the child () percent of the time
and lie facing them 95% of the time.
Mothers also spend a majority of their time in bed curled protectively
around the baby.
Dr Hall said; "A baby sleeping with its mother didn't appear to go
into long, deep sleep patterns in the same way as a child sleeping on
its own."
"It tended to move into light sleep and also woke to be breastfed.
This is important for babies because it is believed that SIDS is
linked to deep sleep patterns"
Dr Hall said that parents who act on the research should be prepared
for their baby to wake more often, particularly if the father is also
in the bed.        (NT News 2/4/98)

and from the same newspaper, the previous week:

Mother's milk may help sight
Adelaide: Infants who were fed on artificial milk in the first months
of life were likely to have lower visual ability than breastfed
infants, an Australian medical researcher said this week.
Dr Maria Makrides, from Adelaide's Womens and Children's hospital,
compared the responses of formula-fed and breastfed five-month-old
infants to changing televised chequerboard patterns and found that
breastfed infants were able to spot the changes in smaller patterns.
She said it may be the long chain fatty acids in breastmilk were
responsible for the differences. She said long chain fatty acids were
needed for neural development in the last trimester of pregnancy and
the first year of life.            (NT News. 26/3/98)

Cheers,
Querida

Querida David
Alyangula, NT. Australia
NMAA Counsellor,
GL, NT Correspondence Group
Editor 'Upfront'
Member NT Publications review team
Email: [log in to unmask]