Anyone interested in providing editorial assistance on the following first draft of my letter 
to the editor of the NYTimes, please email me privately

Holiday Safe Sleep Campaign for Homeless Infants
 
Throughout human history, the norm has been for infants to sleep with their parents.  The 
American Academy of Pediatrics recommends cosleeping to reduce the risk of SIDS 
because research shows that the highest risk of SIDS occurs when infants sleep in a 
separate room from their parents.  Yet many confuse coSLEEPING, which means the 
infant sleeps within arms reach of a its mother in the same room, and coBEDDING, which 
means that the infant sleeps in the same bed with the mother.  To state that co sleeping 
is dangerous is not supported by the evidence. Public health specialists, politicians, and 
the news media have a responsibility to educate themselves about sleep research before 
they make ill-informed statements equating cosleeping with cobedding. 
 
Alcohol abuse, drug abuse, smoking and obesity have been implicated in increased risk of 
OVERLAYING when an adult smothers an infant while sleeping in the same bed.  The beds 
in homeless shelters are clearly not conducive to safe coBEDDING and there is a high risk 
of overlaying.  To admonish a mother in a homeless shelter that she is an unfit mother if 
her infant does not sleep “alone in a crib”, however, may not succeed for both pragmatic 
and cultural reasons.  Many women in shelters may not always have access to a crib as 
they frequently move from one temporary residence to another.  In a shelter setting, 
mothers may be fearful of other residents harming their infants if they are not sleeping in 
close proximity to their infants.  Furthermore, many residents of homeless shelters come 
from cultural backgrounds where cosleeping and bedding are the norm.  A more 
pragmatic public health solution would be to provide safe, lightweight, portable infant 
sleeping devices for mothers that could be placed within arms reach of the shelter beds.  
Instead of a negative message of one more thing that homeless women do wrong, it 
would provide them with the means to safely coSLEEP with their infants, without 
coBEDDING. 
 
We urge the public health officials, politicians, and the news media to support a campaign 
for this holiday season to provide safe coSLEEPING devices that would work in a 
homeless shelter setting.  

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