Well, we do need to look at this topic as "scientifically" as we can --- looking 
at the available studies and their potential strengths and weaknesses, since 
none of our personal/professional experiences are enough to make such a 
large conclusion. When the CDC or CPSC makes some kind of statement about 
64 babies this or 78 that, they're only talking a portion because they don't 
really know the whole story. While they think they're making cosleeping sound 
dangerous, yes, the numbers make it sound far safer than crib sleeping.

I haven't gone through these in detail for a few years now, though not much 
has been published since a big breeze of studies in 2005, and though I try to 
look at anything newly published for contradictions or new revelations, I have 
delved through the available studies in depth a few times over the last 
decade. Of course, no measure of cosleeping deaths versus crib deaths has 
any meaning unless we know the percentage of cosleepers. Then many of 
these cosleep only a percentage of the night. I looked through many of the 
available references to such numbers and chose to quote this on my 2002 
review on my site:  "13% of U.S. infants are routinely cosleeping with nearly 
50% sharing bed for part of the nights. National Institute of Child Health and 
Human Development 2000 Survey," thinking it to be slightly on the 
conservative side, and then created a graph at bottom of page from a study 
on cosleeping around the world, in relation to infant death rates (highly 
revealing though the total parenting paradigm that goes with cosleeping is at 
work, but what's wrong with that? as example: Everyone wants to separate 
breastmilk from breastfeeding behavior but doesn't it usually come as a 
package deal? What's wrong with the bigger picture? though there is certainly 
some interest in the separate details.)
http://www.babyreference.com/Cosleeping&SIDSFactSheet.htm

I dug up some additional numbers for that page such as how many children die 
in night fires, rather assuming they're far less likely to die if next to parent 
than at other end of home. These would not be included in SIDS comparison 
studies but this and other such numbers should truly go into the mix. 

Then in 2005, when big announcements were in the media and lots of new 
studies coming out, I did another in-depth hunt through them to pull out the 
numbers that interested me. They're here:
 http://www.babyreference.com/Cosleeping&SIDS%202005%20Review%20of%
20the%20Studies.htm

What is reassuring is that every new study seems to take in account the 
factors that were criticized in every earlier study. Accounting for confounding 
factors can pile up into its own confounding but I think each open-minded 
study (versus a crib or formula industry "study"), is pretty much better than 
the one before.

While I'd like to think in terms of greater grandeur, it appears that there may 
be some slight increased infant risk for safe cosleeping with tiny newborns and 
there's a benefit to cosleeping after say a good 8 pounds of baby --- don't 
quote that weight at all please as it's just a wide guesstimate from what is 
published and of course is no rule, just an example. And the early cosleeping 
can help establish the exclusive bf. And, of course, if you're talking risks, look 
at the huge difference between exclusive breast vs exclusive formula feeding 
from birth. I call it double the risk for ff in another review of available studies. 
The supposed confounders of education, income etc. are nicely attended to 
directly in the studies or in parallel studies. These arguments are old and 
outdated.  I can't wait until someone comes out with a larger, more direct 
assessment of this in an industrialized nation with full bf vs full ff.

Best, linda
Linda F. Palmer, DC
author "Baby Matters"

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