Study Claims Co-Sleeping Causes SIDS, But Not Really
A new study out of England claims that “most babies who died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) were babies who were co-sleeping, either in a bed or on a sofa, with an adult or another child.
The study consists of a 4-year study conducted in a southwest region of England. It includes 4.9 million people and 184,000 births. It focused on 80 infants who had died from SIDS, 87 who were randomly selected from the population and 82 who had known risk factors for SIDS, which was defined as having young, socially deprived mothers who smoked, but whose babies did not die.
The study found that 54% of SIDS infants were sleeping with someone else at the time of death.
Now while this could definitely be construed as a huge factor in why so many infants die of SIDS every year, as Mama 2 Mama Tips pointed out, and what I definitely agree with, is that SIDS is when there is no clear cause as to why that infant died, so you cannot point to a case of a mother who rolls onto her infant while sleeping and smothering that infant as a SIDS case–that is a case of a mother who accidentally and unconsciously smothers her baby. What she also pointed out is that this study is making very big use of the term “co-sleeping,” which has also translated to many other high-reaching publications and has undoubtedly sent many mothers of infants and small children into a tailspin, putting up cribs they had never planned on using and ceasing co-sleeping with their children. But. Yes, but. The researchers who have conducted this study obviously have no idea what true co-sleeping is. They say that co-sleeping causes SIDS in over half of the babies in cases that they studied, but they actually lumped co-sleepers with parents who got drunk, took drugs and passed out on the couch next to their baby, which is not co-sleeping and in any case, is just bad, bad parenting.
In addition, I actually find the reporting of this study as incredibly offensive. To suggest that all, or even most or the bulk of SIDS tragedies happen when babies have young, “socially deprived” mothers who smoke. With all of the numerous SIDS cases around the world, this isn’t something happens to just one class of people or one race of people and to conduct a study that focuses solely on lower-income, lower-class mothers strikes me as quite discriminatory.
A big fat thanks to Mama 2 Mama Tips for pointing the flaws and misinformation of this study.
Matt on Mon, 16th Nov 2009 10:18 am
That seems to be pretty biased, you are right, it is discriminatory.
Looking at the report a bit though:
“Pillow use, swaddling, maternal smoking, preterm birth, and fair or poor health were all more common among SIDS infants than among the other babies.”
The main point seems to be to me that there is far more involved than just co-sleeping, it’s just that the issues become more pronounced in co-sleeping because so much more can go wrong. Aside from the above things there was also the mention of drugs, alcohol and smoking.
The report seems to indicate to me that if none of the risk factors were involved then while it is still safer not to co-sleep, the risk is quite low, it’s just when you bring those factors in. Which I guess is where the bias comes in, which certainly isn’t fair.
Truck Hire Gold coast on Thu, 26th Nov 2009 11:27 pm
Oh My God I never about SIDS reason. My child is just one year old and from the birth my child sleep with me and I am lucky that my son is all right.
Jacquelyn Dunn on Sat, 17th Apr 2010 4:46 pm
There are some good points you have made here. I spent years co sleeping with my children and there was never a real fear of SIDS on my mind. I also read somewhere that the natural mother’s instinct will keep you from rolling over onto your child. That the only way that will happen is if you have taken sleeping pills, alcohol, or other medication causing your body to not have it’s biological alert system working.
There are many contributing factors to SIDS, but it is still relatively unknown what exactly causes it. So to alarm parents, especially new ones un-necessarily is not always a good thing. I am not saying that they should not be made aware of the things that can happen, just sometimes maybe just in a less panicky way.
Just my thoughts as mom and now grandma to several healthy happy individuals.
Andy on Wed, 28th Apr 2010 4:28 am
Agreed. It’s not fair to discriminate in that way although at the same time the figures don’t lie.
Baby Boat on Mon, 28th Jun 2010 11:47 pm
What a stupid study. The majority of studies infact show that babies that cosleep or sleep very close to their mothers are actually safer.
This is because babies are learning to breath, and they actually subconsiously copy thier mother’s breathing and sleeping patterns, this may be why you find that your baby wakes up or you wake up around the same time.
Actually keeping a fan on to help move the carbon dioxide away from your babies face really can cut SIDS by around 90%, new studies also believe low seratone levels are a key factor.
For some more advice on safe baby sleep go to http://www.babyboat.com.au/babysleep.html or check out the sids for kids website.