SIDS, Breastfeeding and Co-Sleeping
December 17, 2006 by Angela White, J.D., breastfeeding counselor
Filed under advantages of breastfeeding, breastfeeding basics, health of the baby, quotes and literature, sleep
Last Friday’s post featured an excerpt from the 18th century “Prayer to Be Said When She Nurses for the First Time.” It’s a beautiful prayer and it speaks eloquently to the hopes and fears of every new mother. There is an additional portion of the prayer that reads:
Spare me the horror of accidentally smothering my child while I sleep. God forbid.
Certainly every mother, whether breastfeeding or co-sleeping or not, worries about her child during the night (and may even repeatedly check to make sure the baby is still breathing). Times have changed since that prayer was written though. Now we know about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), defined essentially as the sudden death of a baby younger than one year old without a known cause. Back then, if a child mysteriously died in the night, a mother mistakenly might have believed she smothered her child.
Furthermore, the risk of SIDS has declined dramatically over the years. The latest Center for Disease Control figures put the annual incidence of SIDS in the United States at slightly over 1 in every 2,000 live births. (Translation: take reasonable precautions but do not let worry over SIDS interfere with enjoying your new baby!)
Nowadays, tragic stories about babies being smothered generally involve mothers who were intoxicated and who shouldn’t have been co-sleeping. Breastfeeding and co-sleeping mothers are particularly sensitive to their children, and co-sleeping can be done safely if a few guidelines are followed.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that an infant be placed to sleep in a crib or bassinet in the parents’ room. Dr. William Sears argues that an infant sleeping in the parents’ bed is far safer than in a crib, and that both co-sleeping and breastfeeding reduce the risk of SIDS.
Personally, I used an Arm’s Reach Co-Sleeper next to my bed when my baby was little. Once she grew a bit older, and also harder to lift in and out of the co-sleeper, I brought her into my bed but left the co-sleeper in place for diaper changes and for extra protection against the baby falling out of bed (I had a bad experience with bed rails and do not recommend them unless you are absolutely positive they are the proper ones for your mattress size/height and they are installed safely).
Clearly further research needs to be done about SIDS and about the safety of co-sleeping. In the meantime, it can’t hurt to offer up an extra prayer for the safety of our little ones in the night.
When I was researching co-sleeping, I learned that priests forbade women from sleeping with their babies in the 18th century after a conference of Bishops from the Benelux countries. A number of parish priests said that they’d heard a poor women confess to “laying over” their babies. In other words, infanticide committed by desperate women who had too many little mouths to feed.