cosleeping and sids

[violin_fingers]

What are your thoughts on co-sleeping and sids? I ask because of a news story that was on in my area tonight about a woman who has lost 2 babies in 2 years to SIDS. She also openly said she had been sleeping with at least one of them on the couch when it happened. Which I know is obviously a no-no. How do you "safely" co-sleep? Do any of you worry

Comments

[patchfire]

From reading James McKenna's work, as well as other reading, I firmly believe that cosleeping (in a bed, on a firm mattress, without overly fluffy and heavy covers, et cetera) is the safest way for a baby to sleep with relation to SIDS. Yes, there are quite a few risk factors that can reduce the risk of SIDS, but I think that physiologically, babies were designed to sleep with others, not alone.

As far as how I safely cosleep. Our bed is on the floor, no bedframe, and we have light, thin covers on the bed (Ikea has great inexpensive fleece throw blankets that work great for this), and there is no pillow in the area where dd2 (3 months) sleeps. We make sure any blanket she uses doesn't go past her waist. We don't do couches or waterbeds or anything like that. And that is pretty much it. As she gets older, we'll be more lax about covers and pillows, as we did with my older two. :)

[indiefolklore]

This is how we sleep as well, with our beds on the floor. To make sure there is more than enough room for all of us we have a queen + a twin put together.

I love Dr. Sears and here is one of his articles on Safe Sleeping With Your Baby. It adresses the SIDS issue.

Theres a BIG difference between SIDS and rolling over on your baby which can be the case when you are unsafe and sleep on a couch.

[rochelle]

I know that couches are a no-no, but I'm not sure why. Do you?

[violin_fingers]

As far as I know because they can fall between the cushions/ couches are soft squishy and not a firm surface for them to be on. As well as they're small and the risk of them falling off is higher.

[cerulean_me]

It's easier for the baby to get caught in a dangerous position...

[curbbrat]

well an ex of mine, who was quite over weight when what i am about to say happened, managed to smother a kitten in a couch one night. somehow he rolled on top of it and never felt or heard it moving. of course that is two strikes on co-sleeping no nos and it is a kitten not a baby.

that said who's to say the woman in the news report lost her baby because they were on the couch? it very well could have been sids, and i would think after losing a previous baby this way there would have been a thorough investigation to rule out negligence. especially considering the babies death was labeled a sids death and not a smothering death which is actually easier and cheaper to say on a death certificate. makes me think the couch while a taboo place to sleep, wasn't the culprit.

[cerulean_me]

Here's the thing- sleeping on the couch with your baby raises the risk of accidental suffocation- which is also what most people are actually worried about with co-sleeping. Suffocation is NOT SIDS.

We don't really know what causes SIDS, but we do know that alot of SIDS deaths have in common... Your baby is far less likely to die of SIDS in your bed. He will pattern his breathing after you, and newborn apnea is less of an issue. His environment is better control- from being in a well vented space, to temperature control.

To keep it safer- don't sleep with baby if you're chemically altered. Don't smoke and do breastfeed. Keep fluffy bedding away from baby, and once baby is mobile, gets some guard rails or the like.

[the_questess]

This. Every word of it.

My pediatrician told me that cosleeping would increase the risk of SIDS because we might roll over on baby and suffocate her.

Horribly, horribly ill-informed because suffocation is not SIDS!

Co-sleeping is _good_ for newborn babies. Just like this person said, they can regulate their breathing, heartrate, and body temperature because they are right there next to you.
IMHO, it's quite possible that SIDS is related to losing these regulations (but again, they don't actually KNOW what causes it).

So personally, I think it's actually beneficial to cosleep! :-D

Every other social species does it, why shouldn't humans? When your instincts tell you it's right, why do you deny them?

[the_questess]

Err, hopefully that last paragraph didn't come off as YOU you, the OP. It was just a generalize "you" to all the people that tell us cosleeping is horrible and that we _need_ to stuff baby off somewhere else to sleep alone, exposed, out of reach of the safety of its parents, etc.

[cerulean_me]

Exactly!

I've been asked how I prevent rolling onto my children at night. i generally ask people in return, "How do you prevent rolling out of your bed at night?" asleep =/= brain dead, we have an awareness that still works quite well even asleep.

[introducingyael]

SIDS.DOES.NOT.EQUAL.SUFFOCATION.

A SIDS baby just.DIES. No one knows why.

Babies who suffocate have something else keep the air from getting into their body.

[violin_fingers]

I understand that. That's why I was asking others what THEY think about the risk/how they see it/if they see it as one.

[amyura]

Well, that's the thing. The addeed risks from sleeping on a couch are NOT risks for SIDS. Whether or not anyone sees them as risks. They're risks for suffocation.

[introducingyael]

Exactly. All the tips for safely cosleeping reduce the risks for suffocation, not SIDS. Since we don't know what SIDS is, we can only make educated guesses as to what reduces our risks. So, yes, I think sleeping on a couch with a baby dangerous and risks suffocation. You can pretty much eliminate the risks of suffocation, but a baby can be in the "safest" demographic and still die of SIDS, unfortunately.

[alwaysamommy]

I'm sorry but when someone has more than one baby dead from SIDS, I get a little suspicious.
Anyway, safe co-sleeping on a firm mattress without chemically altered parents or heavy blankets is safer than crib sleeping. It has been proven that while co-sleeping children do die, a higher percentage of children die in cribs where their parents can't sense something is wrong.

[hippydippymama]

The problem is that there is a confirmed genetic link to SIDS. So it could be something that the parent is doing, or it could just be really really bad luck.

[alwaysamommy]

If it is really bad luck, then I feel for the mom.
It's just that any time I hear of more than one SIDS death in the same family, it reminds me of the mother in the 80's that had like 9 babies die of SIDS and it turned out to be murder.

[hippydippymama]

Nine is.... probably pushing it. It's just hard to say, you know?