When little Emily gave birth to her first child, sleeping with her baby in bed was a given – even though all the public health messages told her it wouldn’t come.
“I knew it was something I wanted to do,” said Little, a perinatal health researcher and science communication consultant who has studied bed-sharing cultures around the world. There was less pull in the skin-to-skin contact that she could keep on her baby all night, and it was easier to breastfeed without waking up. It felt natural to sleep the way mothers and babies have slept “since the dawn of human history,” she said.
So she began researching ways to reduce the risk to her child. Bed sharing has been found to be more dangerous for full-term babies in nonsmoking, exclusively breastfed homes: check. Only the nursing parent should sleep next to the baby: See. Since babies are less likely to sag on a firm mattress and without a mature bed, he slowly put in his top mattress for the boss, removed all his clothes and extra pillows. Because children can fall on the bed or in the gap between the bed and the wall, they slowly threw the bed against the wall, and filled the gap with foam.
Emily Little shares her bed with her baby after breastfeeding. Little is a perinatal health researcher who created a discussion guide for parents and health care providers to address the nuances of sleep sharing.
(Tanya Goehring / for the Times)
However, the small decision runs counter to advice from child advocates and public health advocates, who warn that co-sleeping increases the risk of a child dying in the middle of the night. For decades, US health authorities and public health officials have been warning that the only way to avoid unexplained infant learning (abcs) Some controversial campaigns even showed a child lying next to a meat cleaver, sending the message to parents that they can be deadly weapons when lying next to a child.
And it worked: Sleep-related infant mortality rates dropped dramatically after safe sleep campaigns began in the 1990s. But in recent decades, the ratio has plateaued and started to climb again, at the same time that bed sharing has become more popular among parents. So some lawyers are in the transition to “minimize” the positive approach that accepts parents who want to sleep with their babies and give advice on how to do it as safely as possible.
“Excluding them only – messages that do not work, and parents are often not reliable about their pediatrician when asked. We all need to admit that it is inevitable,” said Susan AltLeld, a retired professor from Illinois-Chicago who was there to load the bed. “Cultivating new messages to teach parents which behaviors are particularly risky and what they can do to reduce those risks has the potential to achieve change.”
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A changing message is circumcised in the bedroom
About 3,700 infants die suddenly and unexpectedly each year in the US, a number that has remained the highest for decades, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The risk of sharing a real bed: Infants who sleep with adults are 10 times more likely to be at risk, depending on their specific risk factors, or AAAP, wrote the latest safety guidelines.
However, the percentage of parents in the US who said they often co-sleep, from about 6% in 1993 to 24% in 2015. Although recent national data is not available, more than a quarter of mothers in California said they “always or often” delivered in 2020-22.
Little tiuts are great for sharing sleep and help families reduce risk.
(Tanya Goehring / for the Times)
La Leche League International, a breastfeeding organization, offers “safe sleep 7” on their website to help parents breastfeed safely. Little Code created “Harming Reduction” for safe participation in an online chat room for other parents to help foster the conversation that has served between parents and providers from time to time for many parents. He also addresses the positive aspects of sleep sharing and helps families reduce risk.
Babies who share a bed with their mother, for example, have been shown to breastfeed in anticipation. Parents who plan ahead and share safety can avoid accidental sleeping with the child in the most unsafe of conditions – a recliner or sofa. And many parents feel they are strengthening their bond with their child, she said.
“Babies have a natural expectation to connect with their caregivers at all times, especially in the first months,” said Let. “To deny that because we as a society can’t have a conversation about disaster reduction and harm reduction is causing a decline in good health and mental health.”
Back to safe sleeping advocates
The Academy of Pediatrics, in its 2022 guidelines, acknowledges that parents may ‘choose to share a common bed for a variety of reasons, and offers several safety suggestions if a parent “unintentionally” sleeps with their child. “However, on the basis of evidence, the aap cannot recommend allocating beds under any circumstances,” state the guidelines.
It is almost impossible to assess whether the family is truly low risk when it comes to bed sharing, especially that Dr. Rachel Moon, and a researcher at the Virginia Medical School, and the leading author of the AAP report. Even if a parent poses a low risk one night, when they have a glass of wine in the evening, suddenly they enter the category of high risk, he said.
“I knew it was something I wanted to do,” Little, shown with his family, said by sharing a bed with his child.
(Tanya Goehring / for the Times)
Moon said bed-sharing advice had been a topic of discussion for years at the Academy, but given evidence of the dangers, the group decided to warn against the practice in all cases.
“There is no obligation for us to give [parents] Permission, “said the healer, dealing with sleep-related death in his role as a researcher.” Every day I deal with dead babies, and if it happens in a bed-sharing situation, [parents] he regrets it. I deal with this enough that I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for themselves. “
Changing safe sleep messages can be a “slippery slope,” said Deanne Tilton Durfee, executive director of the Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect, which runs La County’s Safe Lead Camp campaign. “You have to be very specific about the messages” because many parents may not pay attention to the details, she said.
In 2024, 46 infants in Los Angeles County died in their sleep, and almost all of the behaviors involved bed-sharing, Durfee said.
Originally from parents’ homes
Pachet Bryant, a mother in Mission Viejo, felt deeply involved in sleeping with her new baby from the moment she gave birth. “You raise a child for nine to 10 months, and suddenly for them to be separated from your heart, from your face, from your wrist, it hurts,” she said.
But he wanted to do it as safely as possible. So when lactation Asaiah Harville started working with her, the counselor gave advice tailored to the new mother’s condition, which Bryant took “very seriously.” Bryant had already done some research on his own and was able to modify his space accordingly. He checks again every night to see if it is safe for his child to sleep in bed; At night when they were too tired, he put his daughter to sleep in a bassnet instead.
“We know that parents will intentionally or unintentionally at some point burn out with their child, and we have to think about creating a much safer environment for that,” Harville said. Seeing the reality of each family’s home, he said, “We can’t just teach not to give up.”
This article is part of the Times’ Youth Education issue, which focuses on the learning and development of California children, from infants to 5 years old. For more information about its Philanthropic initiatives, go to Latimes.com/earysed.
