Dear Friends:
This new article about bedsharing being associated with an increased
risk of SIDS for infants < 11 weeks of age has bothered me from its first
mention. Rachel Myr has already alerted us to the need to read the entire article
and how interesting it is that physicians can get CMEs from reading an
abstract. (I interrupt this to mean that there is something more going on than meets
the eye.)
I got the whole article and have been ploughing through it. There is a
lot of statistical description and talk; there are lots of clever phrases and
suggestions.
My feeling was reinforced by a email dialogue I had with Linda Smith,
who is an expert on this topic. Thank you Linda!
For one thing, in the conclusion, it says ".......the association with
bedsharing remains for young infants even if the mother is a non-smoker or the
infant is breastfed." There is no data collected or shown about
breastfeeding and no definition of breastfeeding. (Breastfeeding rates in Scotland are
notoriously low, although there have been some pockets of improvement in the
past few years.) There is reference to "a strong association between
breastfeeding mothers who bedshared with young babies." But where is the data?
Shouldn't a strong association have lots of lovely data to go with it?
There is a puzzling paragraph about the 6 control infants, whose parents
perception of "where the baby slept for most of last sleep" was a separate
room, but those infants did in fact share the parental bed at some point
during last sleep, for between 2 and 5 hours. Then these infants (the control
infants) were added to the bedsharing controls who slept all night in the parents
room. I don't get it
Bed-sharing was not associated with death........at least not much.
Babies could spend some time in their parents bed as part of their last 12
hours alive; but then, their parents probably brushed their teeth as part of
the last 12 hours, and that wasn't associated with infant death either.
And what really happened with the 6 control infants? The parent's perceived
that their baby was sleeping in a separate room, but the infants did at some
time in the last 12 hours, share the parental bed. Both these things can be
true....why not conclude that sleeping in a separate room for part of the last
12 hours was associated with death?
There always seems to be a nasty article around the time of World
Breastfeeding Week. Such articles are basically saying that breastfeeding is
risky and that mothers and babies together is risky. This is so
counterintuitive that I am staggered by the fact that such a thing can even be questioned.
Why does oxytocin release make mothers sleepy and why do the hormones in human
milk make the baby sleepy, if they weren't supposed to sleep together? Where
would we all be if mothers were bad for babies?
I am glad to know that tobacco is not good for babies, and that
sleeping supine when alone is best for babies, and that infants shouldn't sleep on
waterbeds or couches, or with drunk/stoned parents. I just can't, in my heart
or in my gut accept that bedsharing is dangerous for healthy mothers and
healthy babies.
warmly,
Nikki Lee RN, MS, Mother of 2, IBCLC, CCE
Maternal-Child Adjunct Faculty Union Institute and University
Film Reviews Editor, Journal of Human Lactation
www.breastfeedingalwaysbest.com
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