Should You Share a Bed with Your Baby?
May 22, 2009 by Kristie Leong MD
Published in Motherhood
As a new mom, you may be tempted to share the bed with your baby. Is this a good idea?
If you’re a brand new mom it’s natural to want to be with your baby as much as possible. Spending time together is important to help nurture and strengthen the special bond that exists between mother and child. Many moms extend this closeness to bed time by allowing the new baby to sleep with them. Although the custom of infant bed sharing has been practiced throughout history in almost all cultures, it’s recently come under scrutiny due to potential health concerns. Should you share a bed with your baby?
While there are advantages to infant bed sharing such as the opportunity to bond and a greater sense of security for both parties, sharing the bed baby has its risks and drawbacks, particularly from a safety standpoint. Studies have shown that more than fifty percent of deaths related to SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) occurred when an infant shared the bed with a parent.
Why does infant bed sharing increase the risk of SIDS? When parents share beds with an infant, the baby is more likely to have access to soft pillows and other bedding materials that could increase the risk of suffocation. A baby who shares a bed with mom is also more likely to sleep in an unstable sleeping position such as on his side or stomach.The ideal sleep position to reduce the risk of SIDS is to position a baby on his back.
An article published in American Family Physician emphasized that infant bed sharing was most dangerous for babies younger than four months of age as well as premature, low birth weight babies. The risk to infants older than four months of age weren’t as apparent. Another drawback to infant bed sharing is the effect it can have on sleep patterns. Sharing beds with baby can make sleep more fragmented for both parties. It’s also critical that infant bed sharing not take place if one or both parents smoke or use alcohol.
What’s the solution? The safest compromise may be to baby close at night by placing his crib in the same room as mom and dad. This can provide the new mom with a sense of security, knowing that baby is within easy reach without the potential risks of SIDS that come with infant bed sharing. A crib is a better alternative to a bed for a young infant since it’s designed to meet safety standards. The good news is you’ll sleep better knowing you have baby close by.
Liked it
May 22nd, 2009 at 4:51 am
this is really interesting. i was aware of the dangers of cot death, but never of the dangers of sleeping beween parents as there is a risk of pillow suffocation. you are 100% right. there will come a point when even the adults fall asleep and then the baby can suffocate or even get crushed by their weight. BRILLIANT!!
May 26th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Thank you for this very informative aticle. It is so important to create safe sleeping environments for our kids and placing an infant to sleep it its own crib is definitely the way to go. Although there are some proponents of “safe” bed-sharing, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that all babies, even those of sober parents, are put to bed on their backs in a bumper-free, blanket-free, stuffed animal-free, pillow-free crib. It’s like saying it’s okay to sometimes not wear our seatbelts. Do we always need a seatbelt? No. Can we, most of the time, get from point A to point B with no harm to ourselves from not wearing a seatbelt. Yes. Do we want to have one on if we get into an accident? Of course. We cannot foresee car accidents anymore than we can foresee an infant’s vulnerability to a SIDS event. Will most infants succumb to a SIDS or ASSB event while bed-sharing? No. Will a small percentage? Yes. Not bed-sharing is like your infant’s safety belt. Why would you ever risk it?
There’s a good site that lists other things we can do to create safe sleep enviroments for our babies. Check out these tips (http://www.cjsids.org/education/sleep-in-safety-grow-in-style.shtml ) which not only include placing baby to sleep on its back on a firm mattress and keeping cribs completely free of ANY bedding at all, but also keeping temperature mild so baby does not overheat , using ceiling or portable fans to keep air circulating and NO BED SHARING….if you want to co-sleep with your baby, it is safest to keep your infant in its own crib or bassinet within close proximity to you, but not in the same bed as you.