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 thought you might be interested in this article from Canada's national newspaper. I'm especially pleased by Dr. Denis Leduc's comments (near the end). He used to be the head of the Canadian Pediatric Society. I'd interviewed him a few times for articles, so when the CPS initially spoke up against co-sleeping, I felt that I knew him well enough to call him (I was then ED of LLLC). The guidelines now talk about ways to make co-sleeping safer, and I love that he emphasizes breastfeeding as part of that. 


I've had to cut the article short because it was too long for Lactnet...


Teresa




								
                                
                                
                                
								
 HEATHER SOKOLOFF
									
							

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail    


						

								
																					
												
												

											
									
													
					
			
	

				February 24, 2009 at 9:21 AM EST
			

			





    	
        	
        		
      		
  	






  	
		



		
	



        

        
                            
            

    
    	MONTREAL — Valerie Telio has heard the warnings again and again: The safest way for a new baby to sleep is on the back, in a crib.
But when her third child, born last summer, turned out to be a
terrible sleeper, the Montreal mother brought the baby into her bed.
And after nursing, she settled her daughter by placing her on her tummy
in the bed.
She's not alone in her nighttime desperation.

	
		
			

			
                

			
                
        	            



		
                                    
                            
                    
                
            
		
    
    
	

But when it comes to getting through the first few months with a new
baby, some of the most vigilant mothers admit to ignoring their
doctors' advice and doing whatever it takes to get their babies to
sleep.
"You are so horribly sleep-deprived, you would do anything," Ms. Mawas says.
"You can't judge until you've been through it."
A Quebec coroner's report, released earlier this month, found that a
two-month-old baby died last year of asphyxiation after his mother put
him to sleep in a car seat after a restless night. The coroner, Jacques
Robinson, explained that the head of a baby sleeping in a car seat can
bend far forward, restricting the upper respiratory passages and
cutting off oxygen.
Dr. Robinson is recommending that health and social service agencies make new parents aware of these potential risks.Tracey Ruiz, a birthing and postpartum specialist who is known as
the "sleep doula," says parents are already under tremendous strain
from sleep deprivation.
She has a roster of clients who do everything from driving their
babies around in car seats for hours to climbing into the crib with
their newborns to get them to sleep.
"The desperation you see in these families is ridiculous."As a result, many new mothers do not tell their health-care
providers that they are not going completely by the book when it comes
to their babies' sleep.
"They aren't honest because they know they are going to get heck for it," Ms. Ruiz says.
When Natalie Morales, an anchorwoman at NBC's Today show,
recently posted on a parenting website that she put her colicky son to
sleep on his tummy, her message was met with cheers from other parents
in the same situation. "We can both sleep better at night because of
it," Ms. Morales wrote. "Is that such a bad thing?"
The Canadian Pediatric Society attempted to take a "harm-reduction"
approach by creating a set of guidelines for safer co-sleeping. The
practice is associated with suffocation and sudden infant death
syndrome, but can be made more safe if parents remove pillows and
duvets, make sure there is no possibility of entrapment between the
mattress and wall, and do not take drugs or drink, says Denis Leduc, a
Montreal-pediatrician who co-authored the CPS position on creating a
safe sleep environment for infants.
"If you eliminate all those things and you are breastfeeding, chances are you are going to be okay," Dr. Leduc says.
The problem is also being addressed by several U.S. jurisdictions in
which low-income parents are given training in soothing methods
outlined in Harvey Karp's bestseller The Happiest Baby on the Block. According to Dr. Karp, while back sleeping is the safest position for babies, it is also the least comforting.
Dr. Karp's book and DVD describe how to combine swaddling, swinging,
sucking, positioning and shushing sounds to soothe newborns.
He says infant crying and sleeplessness are the top causes of
postpartum depression, shaken-baby syndrome and breastfeeding failure.
	
	
	
  
	

			

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