Co-Sleeping with Your Child Could Put His or Her Life at Risk - Children Sleep Safer in a Crib

Co-sleeping with your child engenders feeling of mutual bonding, peace and tranquility. For the fractious, teething baby and for mother and/or father, co-sleeping can be both soothing and calming for both parties. For the exhausted breast-feeding mother - it provides the possibility of a nap as the child feeds.  For centuries, in many countries in the world, parents have slept with their babies, some out of choice, others out of need.

But what if things go wrong?
As geriatric nurse Rachel Procope (23) recently discovered (Trinidad & Tobago Express, Feb 8, 2009) things can go very wrong indeed. Rachel woke one morning after co-sleeping with her baby to discover that she had accidentally smothered him as she slept. She awoke to find her baby bleeding from his nose and mouth, and had absolutely no idea what had happened.

Unfortunately, Rachel's experience is not uncommon. A study by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (Washington DC), into 515 infant deaths showed that all were related to the use of adult beds, and of those 121 were caused by an adult rolling either on top of or against the infant while they slept. The rest were caused by strangulation suffocation – the child slipping down between the mattress and the bed or other objects and becoming wedged;  the child' sliding between bars or openings on the bed leaving the head entrapped; and obstruction of the infant's airway caused by sleeping face down on a waterbed.

This averages 64 infant deaths per year – mostly preventable by placing the baby in it's own crib to sleep.

Alcohol, drugs and medication play an important part in infant co-sleeping deaths. Parents or carers who take drugs, alcohol, or other concoctions which cause severe drowsiness and deep sleep and then place their charges into the same adult bed to sleep run the risk of accidentally killing the infant - they also risk being prosecuted for reckless homicide. Perhaps warnings given out with prescription drugs should include the words "Do not sleep in the same bed as an infant or child while taking this medication."

For many parents, co-sleeping is a positive and happy experience, but as CPSC Chairman Ann Brown says: "The only safe place for babies is in a crib that meets current safety standards and has a firm, tight-fitting crib-sized mattress. Place babies to sleep on their backs and remove all soft bedding and pillow-like items from the crib."