Dear Lactnetters,

It has been gently called to my attention that my description of what's
happening in Missouri was way out of line. I had wrongly interpreted the
second-hand information that I'd received, and then blasted it out to
all of you!

The Safe Sleep workgroup in Missouri is NOT planning ANY legislation, or
even regulation of parent-infant sleep choices. According to the two
major players on the committee, from SIDS Resources, Inc and the MO
Dept. of Health, the goal of the committee is much more positively
focused! I quote: "The intent of this group has always been to develop a
general consensus in the development of educational materials and to
teach a consistent message.  At no time has there ever been the intent
to develop legislation or to develop any policy to outlaw co-sleeping.
The group just wants to assure that those who choose to co-sleep make
educated choices and have all the available information at hand to make
these choices.  Our ultimate goal is to decrease preventable infant
mortality within the state of Missouri."

Another quote: "In addition, terminology continues to be a challenge
within our workgroup (for all of us - Karen's email used the word
co-sleeping).  Co-sleeping to the workgroup was defined as "mother and
baby sleeping in the same room but not on the same sleep surface."
Sleep sharing was defined as mother and baby sleeping together in the
same surface.  Perhaps sharing these definitions with Lacnet would
benefit the dialogue?  Everyone involved in this discussion, nationally
could use common language."

So. This is my public apology to Lactnet and my colleagues on the
workgroup. I'm sooo sorry to have mis-stated the intentions of my
colleagues, and want to reassure all of you on Lactnet that Missouri is
NOT going to outlaw co-sleeping OR sleep sharing, and while there
remains some disagreement from a few individuals as to whether or not an
educational message should even ACKNOWLEDGE sleep sharing (much less
teach how to do it safely!), the majority of the committee, and its
leaders, have the above-quoted mission in mind.


             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html