Fw: Cosleeping

[Paul&Tracy]

It was my understanding that bedsharing was only believed to be a risk factor in SIDS if the parents sharing the bed are smokers.  That is what I uncovered when researching SIDS for an epidemiology assignment (18 months ago).  Has this changed to all forms of co-sleeping?   Tracy   ----- Original Message ----- From: Janelle & Lyndon Webb To: ozmidwifery Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2002 9:16 AM Subject: Cosleeping All the sharing on the list about the wonderful benefits of cosleeping has stirred my conscience. I have not had children, but can see that this is a very natural thing to do. However, the is a big SIDS prevention push at the hospital where I work, and one of the big no, nos is cosleeping. One of the paeds is on the SIDS committee and apparently there where two cases in our area last year, two cases too many. We have been asked to get parents to sign a form stating that they have received the information on safe sleeping, including the information that cosleeping is not recommended. A midwives, many of us feel uncomfortable with telling mothers that they must not sleep with their babies, and in my practice I was beginning to encourage more and more mothers to "kanga cuddle" their babies and have a snooze together in the days following the birth. Especially if they were having feeding issues. I do know however, that there are also midwives that if they find a mother and baby asleep in bed together, will remove the baby from the bed!   I know that there is also alternative research on cosleeping which I should try and track down, but are there any thoughts from the wise women of this list as to how to approach the current recommendations on SIDS?