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Second Opinion: Co-sleeping

January 31, 2012 by  

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Co-Sleeping

I remember the tidal wave of emotions I felt after the birth of our first child. The fear and sense of responsibility driving home from the hospital. The sense of wonder watching him gaze at his surroundings. The joy in my heart seeing him coo or smile. Except for the times he had projectile vomiting, I wanted to be around this little guy all the time, awake or asleep. And so I was first confronted with the issue of co-sleeping.

Let’s first define what co-sleeping is in regards to this article.  Co-sleeping is when a parent sleeps next to his/her infant in the same bed. (Incidentally, my least favorite form of co-sleeping is in a motel room with family — usually because there is little sleep.)

What are some of the potential benefits of co-sleeping? Moms may not need to get out of bed to breastfeed. It may deepen the relationship between mother and child. And some may sleep better in this arrangement.

But studies indicate there are pitfalls to co-sleeping as well. The most important potential danger is SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). Co-sleeping becomes more dangerous when parents use tobacco or alcohol or when a parent is overly tired or sleeps on a couch. The United Kingdom Department of Health advises that the safest place for an infant to sleep is in a crib in the parents’ room for the first six months of life. Similarly, the American Academy of Pediatrics, in a November 2011 report, recommends that baby can sleep in the same room as parents, but not in the same bed. Sharing a room is OK, but sharing a bed is not.

Let’s re-examine some of those purported benefits. If co-sleeping works while baby is small, fast-forward a year to when that toddler needs to graduate to his or her own bed — that could be a more difficult task. There are other ways to bond, as well: taking a walk, reading a book or playing games.

And on a related note, please place your baby on his or her back to sleep, and avoid blankets and toys in the crib (please see healthychildren.org for more information). The above AAP report also notes that immunizations and breastfeeding are associated with a lower incidence of SIDS.

Many mothers go the extra mile in pregnancy, avoiding over-the-counter medications, caffeine, soft cheeses and fish. Parents fill their homes with safety latches, gates and CO2 detectors. I would challenge parents to think of co-sleeping as a similar safety issue, where good choices can potentially save lives.

David Pommer, MD, is a family physician with Selah Family Medicine. He is a graduate of Whitworth University and the University of Washington School of Medicine. He co-sleeps with his pager, and he is happily married with three children.


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One Response to “Second Opinion: Co-sleeping”

  1. Kim on February 1st, 2012 3:53 pm

    This article was utterly useless, and I was fairly offended when I read it. I tried to occupy my mind doing something else for a while, and then re-read it. It was still a waste of space. SIDS is a terrible thing. But we DO NOT KNOW what causes it, and you cannot blame co-sleeping for it. The only other “pitfall” listed is it might be hard to move them to a bed once they grow. This article really had no information about the pitfalls of co-sleeping.

    When SIDS does occur during co-sleeping, it is almost always exclusively in formula fed babies. Breastfed babies develop a sync with their mothers, it has been proven in studies. When the mother enters deep sleep, the baby does. When mother breathes a certain pace, baby does. It has been shown that breastfeeding mothers are also acutely aware of their babies even while they sleep, something not seen in bottle feeding mothers.

    The addition that it is more dangerous with alcohol and tobacco use…WHAT is not more dangerous with these? What parent should be using these products with a small infant?

    Adding that a parent goes the extra mile to provide safety, such as CO2 detectors, only adds to the slap in the face that a co-sleeping parent is purposefully putting their child in harms way. Saying they should make GOOD CHOICES, as if co-sleeping is an outright bad one, was a poor choice of words. I suggest the next article you publish has some factual information, and comes across less as calling us co-sleepers bad decision making parents.