Hello all, I received this message this evening and felt maybe I should pass
it along since we may all be catching the fallout this week. Dee Keith,
LLLL, IBCLC, mother of ten
-----Original Message-----

Date: Tuesday, September 28, 1999 3:46 PM
Subject: [LLLucKY] NPR program concerning bedsharing and suffocation


>From: [log in to unmask]
>
>Hi, aLLL, Lisa Mo here.
>
>James McKenna would like your attention concerning an NPR interview to be
>broadcast tomorrow (Wednesday).  Contact with your local media would also
be
>appreciated, especially if you have an opportunity to present a rebuttal in
>the reports that will be printed/announced tomorrow.
>
>Ann Brown, Commission of Product Safety (United States), will be making the
>announcement that all babies should sleep in cribs, not the parental bed,
>based on the Drago and Dannenberg study that was published in Pediatrics
>electronic pages in May 1999, which was discussed on Lactnet this summer.
>
> <A
HREF="http://www.pediatrics.org/cgi/content/full/103/5/e59">Pediatrics --
>Drago and Dannenberg 103 (5): e59</A>
> <A HREF="http://www.aap.org/advocacy/releases/mayinf.htm">AAP News
Release -
>Infants at Increasing Risk of Suffocation Death</A>
>
>The letter Dr. McKenna and Dr. Gartner have sent to Pediatrics about the
>study is in press, but the material might be used for background
information,
>(probably not quotations).  For a copy of this letter, please email me.
Dr.
>McKenna says to use whatever information you find helpful.
>
>Below is information from Dr. McKenna:
>
>Here is some ammunition that folks can use to call their media to
>complain--and to get counter position across.
>
>Press release--put out on Monday:
>Statement on sleeping locations and sudden death in infants
>>From the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center
>
>Abraham B. Bergman, MD, Director of Pediatrics, Harborview Medical
>Center and Professor of Pediatrics, University of Washington
>
>Richard Harruff, MD, PhD, Medical Examiner of King County, Clinical
>Associate Professor of Pathology, University of Washington.
>
>MaryAnn O'Hara, MD
>
>Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar, University of Washington
>
>
>Our points:
>
>While we applaud the CPSC for calling attention to environmental hazards to
>infants such as wedge spaces around mattresses/cushions, and the risks of
>strangulation from cords or widely spaced crib rails we condemn their
>campaign to implicate bed sharing, and use of an adult bed as a hazard for
>infants. The original data that form the bases for these recommendations
are
>seriously flawed.; a classic case of "garbage in, and garbage."
>
>The major flaws are:
>
>1. Data: Though we know the number of infants said to have died in adult
>beds, we do not
>know the number of infants sleeping in adult beds who did
><underline>not</underline>
>die. In other words, before making statements of relative risk, it is
>necessary to know
>both the numerator (deaths), <underline>and</underline> the denominator
>(infants who
>do not die.)
>
>2. Certification of death:  The CPSC depends entirely on what someone wrote
>as a cause
>on the death certificate.  Death investigation and certification practices
>vary widely in the
>United States. Those who certify deaths range from coroners with no medical
>training to
>forensic pathologists.
>
>3. Bias: In a review of CPSC data since 1995 one of us (MAO) found that the
>term "overlaying" was used in some geographic area, and not in others. The
>death of an infant
>with the same pathologic findings might be classified as overlaying or
>suffocation if the
>family is poor and/or minority, and SIDS or interstitial pneumonia if the
>family is white
>and/or middle class.
>
>4. Who should make pronouncements on child-care practices: It is not
>appropriate for a
>government agency with scant medical expertise to provide advice on
>child-care practices on the basis of one study. A prestigious organization
>like the American Academy of Pediatrics should first review the evidence
and
>make appropriate recommendations.
>
>Abraham B. Bergman , MD
>206 731 5424
>e-mail: [log in to unmask]
>9/24/99
>
>
>Here are some quotes of mine that you can use-if you find them useful.
>
>Their analysis and recommendation simply assumes without any credible
>scientific
>evidence whatsoever that even a nonsmoking, breast feeding mother who
>bedshares to
>protect and nurture her infant is no more than passive lethal
weapon--wooden
>rolling
>pin, if you will, over which neither she nor her infant has any control.
Such
>thinking is
>both morally and scientifically bankrupt....The researchers equate mothers
>with bed
>hazards--no different than head or foot board that don't meet the mattress.
>Fortunately, we
>have peer reviewed, multiple scientific studies of bedsharing that prove
them
>wrong!
>
>That dangerous conditions can exist in the bedsharing environment is no
more
>an
>argument against all bedsharing--and that it cannot be done safely--than is
>the fact that
>babies strangle and die alone in cribs an argument against all solitary
>infant sleep.
>
>The researchers feel obviously, that problems (hazards) associated with
>solitary crib
>sleeping are problems worth solving but when it comes to mother-infant
>bedsharing, they
>simply assume that any problem associated with it cannot be solved, but is
>invariable and
>inevitable. The only problem is, that this view iscompletely
>incorrect..hundreds of
>thousands and millions of people worldwide bedshare-- and more importantly,
>whether or
>not the "problems or hazards" associated with bedsharing are worth
>solving--should
>remain the parents choice--not the choice of the consumer product safety
>commission!
>
>To accept the logic of the researchers one could say that because some
>parents fail to
>strap their babies into secure car seats, and may drive drunk, and have
>accidents which
>injures or kills babies, all car transportation of infants should be
advised
>against or
>"banned".
>
>However tragic each of the infant deaths are, 121 babies allegedly
overlayed
>under
>unknown circumstances is hardly the basis for a rigid, universal
>one-size-must fit all
>recommendation, especially for something as important and as complicated as
>mothers
>and infants sleeping side by side--which represents the universal,
>biologically appropriate
>sleeping arrangements for infants world wide.
>
>The biological sudies of cosleeping and mother-infant bedsharing suggest
that
>we should
>be assuming and looking for all the hidden benefits that can come and
follow
>to babies
>and mothers by bedsharing--not hidden or explicit dangers.
>
>
>

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