I have returned, with a heavy heart, from the Fisrt
Candle conference (you can google them and learn
alot). I listened and learned, expressed some ideas.
My personal philosophy is that I don't have ht epower
to change another, I can only change myself...soI put
out these comments believeing that we have much to do
within our profession and in our involvement with
policy development, such as bed sharing. The following
comments are factual, not emotional, and I hope
helpful. This was my first SIDS conf.

There is no doubt that the SIDS/SUDI (sudden
enexpected death in infancy)groups (backed by their
research) are determined to stop infant death by what
ever means it takes. We need to understand that they
have experienced the tragic loss of a baby, or
regularly work in the home with families who have lost
a baby, do death scene investigations and recreate the
death scene...they have an insight that we don't. The
pictures shown at the conference were shocking. I
think we need to listen to them and learn. I think the
pics in magazines and in our articles about bedsharing
are "pretty and dreamy" etc. and we should consider
how to better display safe BS. We also need to
consider the family bed...and the role of the todler
body in the bed. Tine Thevinin's "Family Bed" book was
shown in the power point, but summarily dismissed "I
did't read it" said the speaker. We need to design the
safe BS protocol, explicitly. 

Definitions are confusing and tems are used
interchangably which makes communication difficult.
Bedsharing (BS) means not only the parental bed, but a
couch, reclining chair, futon, matress on the
floor...any surface on which the mother (or other) and
baby lie together. I think you can already guess how
some babies die in these situations...and how the
numbers of deaths on surfaces other than a bed inflate
the BS death figures. Room sharing is co-sleeping,
although some mean bedsharing, so please, be careful
when you speak and explain your terms and ask for
definitions. Their research and our commentary bears
the same confusion. 

Bedsharing is on the rise around the world. Many women
who are not breastfeeding are bed sharing, so the need
for education about safe sleep in all sorts of
environments goes well beyound the breastfeeding
community.  I wa sdisappointed that no mentioned was
made of the risk of babies sleeping in their car
seats.

They support, encourage BF, but do accept that bed
sharing is safe. One delegate said to me that "safe
bed sharing is an oxymoron". I do not think they value
the "mother baby togetherness" concept as we do. Maybe
we need to better educate around this point.I told
them about Nils Bergman's work and skin-to-skin).
Several references to how safe the baby is in a crib
versus unsafe in the mother's bed, indicated this.
While mentioned, the room sharing idea was not pushed
real hard as as serious risk reduction measure. I
think that is a real area of common ground.

Gwendolyn West, from Washington DC did a very nice
presentation on Breastfeeding abd safe bed sharing on
the first day.  I met a neonatoligist from a BF
Friendly hospital in Argentina who vigorously
supported bedsharing. He said in his experience,
having the baby in the supine position was what made
the difference.

As for cribs and portable cribs, which are popular in
the crib distribution programs springing up all over
the country, is there room for comromise? Ask youself,
where should mothers put a baby during nap time, when
she is bathing her toddler, or taking out the trash,
shoveling the snow? What if she only has a couch in
her tiny apartment? Some would say in her sling...but
can ther be other suggestions. Again, safety needs to
be taught with the crib as blakets and soft materials
can be dangerous too.

Another area of concern discussed was the use of
pacifiers as a risk reduction measure. Impact on
breastfeeding was minimized (the presenter said that
the research studies she had seen were "observationl
studies" and not that powerful. non-breastfeeding
mothers are the audience on this one.

I have no inside information, but I think, the AAP
will be advising pacifier use and crib sleeping a SIDS
risk reduction measures when they announce their
recommendations on Oct. 10.

There is plenty to consider. How could the ILCA board
intervene with the AAP (if my hunch is verified) and
with the First Candle board? We have the same
goal...healthy babies and families, yet very different
approaches. We can get into the federal government
role on infant health and projects being supported or
not later. 
Anne Andrianos  






		
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