Half of 'cot deaths' are linked to parents sleeping with their baby
A quarter of 500 mothers surveyed by The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths in the UK (FSID) doubted that sharing a bed with a baby put them at undue risk.
But a Bristol University team's study published in the British Medical Journal online found that sharing a bed is a factor in more than 50% of cases. Many of the deaths occurred when parent and infant slept together on a sofa and not in a bed though.
It must be stressed that much of the risk was linked to parents' smoking and alcohol or use of sedating drugs before bedtime. A fifth of the cot death infants were found with a pillow and a quarter were swaddled.
Although cot death rates in the UK has fallen dramatically since the "Back to Sleep" campaign in the early 1990s, specific, targeted advice is still needed to help reduce these deaths even further, say the researchers. Reducing The Risk Of Cot Death Place your baby on the back to sleep, not on the front or side
Don't let your baby get too hot - no bonnets
Sleep your baby with their feet to the foot of the cot
Never sleep with your baby on a sofa or armchair
Sharing a bed raises the risk, especially if you or your partner smokes, drinks or takes sedating drugs
A dummy can reduce the risk, even if the dummy falls out while your baby is asleep
"Parents need to be advised never to put themselves in a situation where they might fall asleep with a young infant on a sofa........And they should never sleep with an infant in any environment if they have consumed alcohol or drugs", the team warned.
But they said some parents might still want to share a bed with their baby, particularly if they needed to feed their infants many times in the night, and that this practice should not be demonised. In fact many breastfeeding advisors actively encourage this.
October 2009
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