Strollerderby
New York State Lies About Infant Sleep Dangers
“Babies sleep safest alone.”
If you’re in New York state, you’ve probably seen or heard the TV or radio ads put out by the Office of Children and Family Services declaring this. If you’re elsewhere, chances aren’t bad that your county has launched a similar effort, trying to warn everyone not to sleep next to their babies no matter what.
They’re well intentioned, trying to prevent tragic deaths of infants. But by applying a scientific double standard and by refusing to differentiate between safe and dangerous ways to cosleep these public health campaigns are promoting distortions of the more complicated truth that may have the side effect of increasing SIDS and accident deaths, both still much more common causes of death.
As I write in today’s Metroland article “Babies Sleep Safest Where?,” here are two of the central problems with saying “babies sleep safest alone”:
(1) Babies who actually sleep alone, as in without an adult sleeping in the same room, have twice the risk of SIDS, according to the 2006 Sudden Unexpected Deaths in Infancy study. Even the American Academy of Pediatrics specifically recommends against putting infants to sleep in their own room. (If asked, OCFS isn’t against room sharing, but they don’t mention that not doing it is dangerous, and it doesn’t bother them that their campaign slogan could easily be misconstrued as being against it.)
(2) The “Babies Sleep Safest Alone” campaign, and most of the other groups fighting bedsharing, are relying on numbers that don’t sort out drunk babysitters who smoke next to infants face down on couches from breastfeeding mothers on a bed that has been carefully set up to remove safety hazards (or, of course, any of the shades of gray in between). They also don’t have accurate numbers for how many people bedshare, meaning they can’t translate numbers of deaths into meaningful, comparable death rates. And yet, they insist that sleeping next to an adult is always more dangerous than sleeping a crib, which is as silly as blaming crib sleeping per se for the deaths of infants who strangle on badly made cribs or suffocate on unsafe crib bedding. In fact, a case can be made that if done following all safety precautions, bedsharing actually has a protective function against SIDS, by regulating immature infant respiratory response. (In countries with low smoking rates and high breastfeeding and cosleeping rates, SIDS is nearly nonexistant.)
In the end, there are so many factors to weigh and so many different
kinds of risks and benefits to balance that only parents can make the
call. They should be helped with information about what makes infant
sleep safe or not safe
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7 Comments
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amWell said. I hope what you’ve written helps to push OCFS to reconsider the campaign AND get a clue about their statistics and data interpretation.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amWe do family bed – didn’t set out to do it, but it ended up that way. Started with a co-sleeper and then winter came and she ended up in the bed with us and is still there a year later. I nurse laying down and usually go back to sleep while she’s eating. This arrangement was very helpful last time she was sick. She got a sudden fever in the night (105)- I noticed because her leg touched mine and it was burning up!
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amI am too, bothered by the amount of misinformation out there. When I tell parent’s that statistically babies are SAFER in bed with their parents I love seeing them shut the hell up and turn red. As if my sleeping arrangements are anyone’s business anyway.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amAmen BBBGMOM! We co-sleep with our now 3 yr old daughter and have only had 2 sleepless nights w/ her (due to sickness) in her entire life. I’ve never had to get up in the middle of the night for feedings, checking her breathing,etc. It has made me a happier, healthier Mama and my daughter sleeps like…eh, baby!
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amWow, I didn’t know most of that info. Great!
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amThank you! I appreciate articles like this one, especially as the mom of a healthy, happy, cosleeping almost-one-year-old. It sucks dealing with people (mostly friends of my parents, though we got a half-hearted lecture from the pediatrician, too) who believe I am somehow endangering my child.
BBBGMOM commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amMy babies would have been far less safe if they had slept alone. I wouldn’t have gotten a lick of sleep what with the constant checking and the up and down breastfeeding. With such a sleep deficit I surely would have committed many acts of stupidity throughout the day thus endangering my wee ones. As it was we all slept as cozily as could be with baby at the breast, breathing together.
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