Rise in Infant Suffocations Renews Debate On Bed-Sharing

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

Source: Washington Post

Infant deaths blamed on accidental strangulation and suffocation in bed have increased sharply in the United States, federal health officials are reporting today, reigniting a heated debate over the rising number of parents who sleep with their babies.

An analysis of death certificates nationwide found that the rate of fatalities attributed to unintentional suffocation and strangulation in the first year of life quadrupled between 1984 and 2004.

While such tragedies remain relatively rare, and the study did not examine what is causing the increase, the trend roughly coincided with a sharp rise in bed-sharing, which has become more popular to help mothers bond and breast-feed. Such deaths can occur when a sleeping parent rolls on top of a baby, a pillow falls on an infant's face, a blanket gets wrapped around the child's neck or when the baby gets wedged between a mattress and a wall.

"There's been a huge increase in the reports of these deaths," said Carrie K. Shapiro-Mendoza of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, who led the study being published in the February issue of the journal Pediatrics. "The message for the public is that accidental suffocation and strangulation is potentially preventable by providing babies with a safe sleep environment.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/25/AR2009012502641.html?wprss=rss_nation

[glowing]

1. A bassinet by the bed should suffice enough with the bonding. Its not that

hard to reach over and pick the child up, is it? We did have our son fall asleep in bed, but always moved him over to the crib by the bed when we were ready to fall asleep. Once he made it past crib stage, he could sleep in the bed with us... or rather, jump in at inconvenient times.. LOL.

[FreakinDJ]

2. They probably don't have room for a Bassinet

or their own house / apartment.

Their living with their parents because their home was foreclosed

[Oregone]

16. Some children REFUSE to sleep if they are not being held

Mine did.

[xxqqqzme]

18. My son was like that too. The loss of human contact meant

he would be awake w/i 5 minutes. I would hold him all through his naps and he slept w/ us in our queen sized bed.

[SheilaT]

3. I have also read

that in almost all cases of suffocation the adult was impaired by drugs or alcohol.

In many other cultures co-sleeping with infants is common.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

4. Yes and most other cultures don't have 12 inch pillow top mattresses and sleep with down comforters.

[Xithras]

41. That's one of the biggest reasons for it.

Humans have a natural instinct to roll away from any uncomfortable object when we're sleeping, and that includes small infants. Parents DO roll onto their children in less affluent societies, but they FEEL the children and quickly roll back off.

Squishy western beds and couches change the equation. Instead of the baby becoming an uncomfortable lump that the parent will roll away from, the baby gets compressed into the soft materials and the parent barely feels the childs presence. The parent doesn't wake up, and the kid dies.

When my youngest sons ped asked whether we were co-sleeping, his first question after our "Yes" was whether we had a pillow-top mattress. As it happens, both my wife and I prefer hard mattresses so it wasn't an issue.

[alexandria]

5. co-sleeping

Yeah i read that as well we have been sleeping with our daughter for 4 months now and no problems.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

6. yes and you are probably doing it in as safe a manner as possible

[alexandria]

8. Safe manner?

We put her in the bed in the middle and we curl up to her until 5am and then feed her.
What are the safe manners?

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

10. Please do some research from some unbiased sources.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

12. Here's a link that may help.

http://babyparenting.about.com/od/sleeping/a/cosleep_2.htm

[knitter4democracy]

32. There are some good books on it. We have some in our library, I know.

Maybe they're in yours.

No heavy blankets, no drinking or smoking or anything that impairs either parent (meds, lack of sleep, etc.), no pillows near the baby, stuff like that.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

7. Here's a link for you.

http://www.momobile.org/news/091004.html

[FedUpWithIt All]

13. Even the slightest risk of finding my baby dead, because of something preventable, was too great.

You just cannot take it back.

And new parents can get VERY tired causing them to sleep more deeply than usual.

:shrug:

I just will never understand some things.

[Politicalboi]

9. I heard this on the radio today

And they said just put the baby in a crib. Easy if you have the money for the crib and the space to put it in. Then I thought that maybe they can't afford heat so the baby sleeps with them to keep warm. Why don't they study why these things happen? Every year you hear about a family dying because they were burning charcoal in the house to keep warm.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

11. Read the article it talks about a lot of that.

[shanti]

15. my depression era father

slept in a dresser drawer. there are other ways around "no crib".

[Robb]

25. Ha! My best friend

and his wife had a daughter about a year ago, and they made a little bassinet out of a file drawer from his old desk. Mostly it was because he's that kind of guy, I think... although I finally saw it, impressive work. Old all-wood drawer, he'd rounded off the bottom so it would rock, and trimmed down one side so the "headboard" was bigger, and did some little scroll-work on it.

Best part of the whole thing: she's outgrown it now, and he pulls it out of his desk to show people. It still fits. :D

[shanti]

26. awesome!

shows what people can do with a little ingenuity.

[Hawkeye-X]

14. That's why we bought a co-sleeper

I think this will help for our son, and we're moving some furniture to make room for it.

[hedgetrimmer]

17. The concern does not have a connection to reality:

~snip~
"...the study did not examine what is causing the increase..."

Now I know everyone has concern for the babies however, the variables exceed the likelihood that family beds are the cause of infant accidental strangulation and suffocation death rates to climb so quickly. If and when unbiased studies are done and if they indicate that family beds are the central cause for an increase in infant accidental strangulation and suffocation then the public at large needs to alter the family bed. As of now a parent or parents have the right to have a family bed as they choose and I think those choosing a family bed do so with a level of conscientiousness for the wellbeing of their child from bonding to safety. To me this entire argument and discourse is arbitrary and based in fear-mongering in order to disrupt a way of life without any substantial bases beyond conjecture.

[DesertDiamond]

19. VERY good point. The report is mere speculation; let's wait for some real investigation on this.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

28. The reporter got various people to speculate about the study.

Those people may have biases. The study itself didn't examine causes just results.

David

[crikkett]

23. that's right, correlation is not causation

but i have no children and so can't say anything else about it.

[RobinA]

48. So What Are You Saying?

Re: Correlation does not equal causation. I'm missing something. If I roll over on my baby and I find him dead, something other then me rolling on him could have caused him to die? The point is, people do roll over on their babies and suffocate them. Co-sleep at your own risk. As a previous poster said, if something happens, you can't get it back.

[bemildred]

27. Well put. Pure conjecture, a Rorshach of the writers biases.

A mountain of conjecture and pleading built on a molehill of fact.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

29. Thanks for blaming the correct person.

[Twinguard]

20. I think I lucked out...

My twins are fantastic sleepers.


We were, however, told from day one that once they no longer fit "horizontally" in their crib, they needed their own cribs. Until they could roll over and do a push-up, we were to swaddle them up snugly in blankets and (of course) only put them down on their back. There shouldn't be toys in their crib, and never-ever should there be anything with a string or ribbon anywhere close to reaching distance.
These were the rules put forth to us by the NICU. So it was written, so it was done.
Simple to follow, and eliminated the risk of some freak tragedy.

My favorite was the full page contract contract we had to sign that only said: " Never ever ever shake a baby!! sign x___________________ "

[boppers]

21. Isn't negligent homicide a crime?

If parents are creating "accident environments" that kill their children, don't we have a legal system to deal with that?

[MountainLaurel]

35. In such cases, very rarely is anyone charged

In most cases of negligent homicide involving parents and a dead child, prosecutors know that sympathy with be with the parent, so no charges are filed. People think "oh, the guilt, haven't they been punished enough?," blah, blah. Think of the reactions you hear after someone forgets their infant in the vehicle and leaves them to cook in their carseat on a hot summer day.

[JVS]

22. .

:popcorn:

[Maine-ah]

24. we had a pack n' play with a bassinet on top

beside our bed where our daughter slept until she was too big for it. We switched her to the crib, which she hated, would not sleep in it at all. That's when she started sleeping with us. I'm a really light sleeper normally, but one night I had a bad dream, and I tend to act out my dreams when they're bad. I had bit someone in my dream, and I ended up biting my daughter on top of her head. I didn't bite her hard, but hard enough to realize what I did and it woke me right up out of my sleep, of course she wasn't too impressed with Mamma at that point either.

We recently had a crib death up here. A two year old was strangled in his crib by one of those netting tents that go over the top of a crib. :cry:

[knitter4democracy]

30. I co-slept with mine. I made sure to do it safely, though.

There are basic guidelines that parents need to follow to make sure their kids are safe, and if they don't follow them, they put their babies' lives at risk.

If a parent smokes or drinks, she cannot co-sleep. Studies show that it increases the risk of death. If a parent is impaired in any way (lack of sleep, meds, whatever), she cannot co-sleep. No pillows by the baby, no heavy blankets, nothing where the baby can get trapped by the wall or between the bed and something else, and no pets or other kids in the bed as well.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

31. I'm glad you made an informed decision.

[knitter4democracy]

33. You should've seen me when I was first preggers.

I was a research machine. I think I read twenty books all the way through during that time, read up on-line about everything I was trying to know more about, and tried to know everything I could about co-sleeping, nursing, natural birth, you name it.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

34. I applaud you for it, I very rarely have to deal with parents like you.

[coffeenap]

36. My kids are 19 and 14. They both slept with us for months.

"Crib death" scared me more as did the unnatural idea of keeping a brand new human being alone. We attached crib bumpers to the headboard, just as you would a crib, and NEVER took sleeping drugs or downed alcohol. There were a few times when one of us had a drink but then that parent would sleep apart until early morning. We are now an extremely close family--my kids don't fight with each other and neither has rejected us, lol. Maybe that early comfort helped?? YMMV.

[Jennicut]

37. My two daughters ages 3 and 4 now would not sleep unless they were held

I had a one and a half year old and a 6 month old up all night sometimes. I had to put the older one next to me in the bed and put the 6 month old in a Pack and Play bassinet. I desperately needed sleep, I was starting to hallucinate during the day from lack of sleep. I was worried about the 6 month old sleeping with me, however. She was just so little.

[seabeyond]

38. not only bonding with mom, but dad too, family unit. i had one that did sleep in bed, and 1

that never did.

it was more the need of the baby, than what i wanted. the first baby needed the warmth, would cocoon self under us. i dont know how many times hubby grabbed arm to pull me back in bed as i am on edge. i have more pictures of this kid as a baby sleeping skin to skin on dad, or cocooned under dad. just who he was

other baby never slept with us. couldn't do it. no matter how tired i was and just wanted him to sleep, couldn't. didn't like pillows on bed, stuff animals, ... odd, but his.

i wouldn't let this stop me.

[Arkansas Granny]

39. I was always afraid to sleep with my babies. I'm a very sound sleeper

and I was afraid that I wouldn't wake up if I rolled over on one of them or inadvertently covered them with a blanket. They slept in their own bassinet or crib from birth. They were in the same room with me, just not in the same bed.

My son and his wife used a co-sleeper similar to this one:



I think that it's a safe alternative. The baby is still in bed, but can't be rolled over onto.

[Bonobo]

40. Amazing how all others primates manage to sleep together but not humans...

So humans are the only primates that need to separate their babies from themselves during sleep? Odd, isn't it?

Because it is, like so much of what we are told... BULLSHIT.

[Xithras]

42. Amazing that none of the other primates need super-soft beds to sleep at night.

Other primates build sleeping mounds to get away from the cold and damp ground, not for general comfort. They certainly don't make nests that relieve all pressure points and make them feel like they're sleeping on "a bed of clouds" all night long. Those "clouds" mask the realization that one of your "pressure points" is the small infant dying under your back.

[Bonobo]

43. Good point there.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

45. Those 18 inch posturpedic pillow top mattress and 4 inch thick comforters are easy to get lost in.

and thats for adults.

[RobinA]

50. Uh...

do we know how many primates suffocate their young? Is it a rate we are willing to live with in humans? Mother animals tend to lose more babies than we would consider acceptable in 2009 for human babies.

[Fleshdancer]

44. I never managed to get a deep sleep when I slept with my infant

I assumed it was some sort of instinct thing, but I was never able to go any deeper than the half asleep half awake stage in my sleep cycle.

If I ever have another baby, I would probably re-create (to some degree) what I had when I had my first and put a futon on the floor to sleep on. I was living in Japan when my daughter was born and with a futon, you don't worry about the baby falling or being wedged between a mattress and wall.

[cynatnite]

51. It was the same with me when I had my baby with me in bed...

I think it's instinctive, too.

[sohndrsmith]

46. has there been a study in the statistics of this and it's correlation to the

economic crisis? Morbid, I know... I'm sorry - but I wonder if the rise follows the same sort of curve.

I had to take infant CPR classes before I could bring my daughter home because something happened in the nursery - kept her for 5 days - thought maybe her esophagus wasn't fully formed... they did every test imaginable and never found out what it was.

I knew before I had her that pillows and sleeping with my newborn was extremely dangerous... is it possible that new parents aren't listening - or nurses are over-worked and forgetting these crucial life saving instructions? I find that hard to imagine... but, man... you have to be prepared for this new little, noisy, wet, sweet person in your life... pillows and adult bodies can be deadly...! Every new parent should have that implanted on their brains - constantly. What a tragedy for a new parent to be responsible for that...

yeesh.... I can't even imagine...

[Coexist]

47. didn't you post this here yesterday?

I think I remember it

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

52. The moderators moved it from LBN.

[kwassa]

49. Our baby was always in a crib, and bonded with us totally.

The idea that the baby needs to sleep in the same bed as the parent to bond is bunk, in my opinion. I think this phenomenon is more about the needs of the parent than the needs of the child.

The thing the baby needs to learn is to fall asleep on their own, and not rely on the parent holding them to make that happen, or parent proximity to make that happen. The process is called "self-soothing", and it works.