Fiona Coombes shared this: <<Scragg et al  Bed sharing, smoking, and
alcohol in the sudden infant death syndrome. British Medical Journal
1993;307:1312-1318.

This was part of the large New Zealand Cot Death Study Group research - the
same group who found significant protective relationships between breastfeeding
and SIDS, and prone sleep position.

In this study, the main risk seemed to be for infants who bed shared and
who had mothers who smoked. The authors state that for infants of non-smoking
mothers, the results were inconsistent with an increased relative risk for
usual bed sharing in the last two weeks (before death) but not for bed sharing
in the last sleep !!>>

In actual fact the only infants at risk were of smoking Maori
mothers,though in NZ this could not be highlighted for political reasons.
Being a displaced First Nation people, Maori are often poor and live in
conditions that are independent risk factors for SIDS; tobacco and alcohol
abuse are serious health issues. A very similar poor community which
breastfeeds, the Polynesians, have a much lower SIDS rate. Later NZ studies
showed co-sleeping to be protective vs, SIDS in communities not poor and
not chemically addicted. But the damage was done. Even in this study the
inconsistent results should have flagged the need for greater analysis
before wide publicity of what has been very damaging information. I was
told that in Canterbury, an area of predominantly Anglo stock, there was a
hugely diferent result and co-sleeping was protective,