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Co-Sleeping Plus Alcohol May Increase Risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome
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A new study indicates that parents who drink and co-sleep with their babies may increase the risk for SIDS. Credit: digimist, Flickr
The study, published in the British Medical Journal, followed all babies born in a southwest region of England from 2003 to 2006, in order to identify common circumstance and behaviors involved in SIDS deaths. ABC News reported that researchers found a higher SIDS risk when babies are co-sleeping with a parent who had recently consumed alcohol.
"The findings suggest that much of the risk associated with co-sleeping may be explained by the circumstances in which the SIDS infants were found," Peter S. Blair of the University of Bristol told ABC.
Seventeen percent of children who died of SIDS were more likely to be co-sleeping with a parent, but the risk increased dramatically -- to 31 percent -- was co-sleeping with a parent who had recently drank or used drugs.
The study recommends that the safest place for a baby to sleep is in a crib close to the parents' bedside, ABC reports.
Do you drink and co-sleep, and will this study change your habits?
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
10-17-2009 @ 3:32PM
Charndra at Part Time Diaper Free said...We sleep share, I love it, it makes momming WAY easier. So snuggly, a great way to stay connected and I just LOVE doing it – SAFELY. And that is the key. My bub sleeps on a sheepskin beside me, lovely.
Clearly a parent using drugs or heavy medications or alcohol should not be sleeping with their precious baby.
Technically, co-sleeping is considered that the baby is in the room, and 80% of parents do this at some stage. yes, 80%!
Education on co-sleeping / bed sharing safety is clearly the way to go.
I consider sleep or bed sharing as the term to use when your baby is IN your bed.
There are links to other articles discussing this topic today at my blog, called Tribalbaby.wordpress.com
Charndra
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10-17-2009 @ 4:13PM
Rachel said...They had to do a STUDY to figure this out?! What has happened to common sense? Drinking or doing drugs while taking care of your kid is a bad idea...really(sarcasm)?
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10-17-2009 @ 9:53PM
Emily said...I agree with both of the first two comments- I slept with my son in bed with me sometimes because it was the only way to get a decent amount of sleep at times, and it definitely has benefits. However, it seems like an obvious "duh" to me that you wouldn't bring your infant into bed with you if you'd been drinking.
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10-18-2009 @ 1:43AM
bremarie03 said...In other news, water is wet.
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10-18-2009 @ 10:17AM
SKL said...Well yeah, I drink and co-sleep, and everyone else who does so should fess up too! Yeah, right!
But more seriously, there is something very wrong with this article/study/whatever, because it means that people are calling suffocation deaths SIDS. SIDS is supposed to have something to do with the child's stopping breathing on his own, not having someone roll over on him and squish him to death. Am I wrong? What is the use of any study or recommendation or comment about something so broad? Why not just have one syndrome called "infant death syndrome" and include pneumonia, child abuse, starvation, poisoning and drowning in the mix too?
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10-18-2009 @ 11:26AM
Inger said...Hmm, I thought SIDS, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, was used to refer to any time an infant died and they weren't really sure why. Most SIDS deaths or cribdeaths are from suffocating, which is why putting babis on the backs to sleep has significantly reduced the incidence of SIDS.
But to the article - of COURSE you are more likely to suffocate your baby if you've had several glasses of wine/beer simply because you are less aware of your surroundings and will sleep more heavily. If you want your wine or whatever, put the baby in a crib next to you, not in your bed for the night. And if you simply MUST use drugs, just give the baby to social services, not in your bed for the night.
10-18-2009 @ 12:43PM
LS said...The more I hear about these studies, the more I wonder: Who is minding the store??? Honestly. They needed to do a study to find this stuff out? I'm guessing that out of $100 granted to the "scientists" by the government, $10 went to actual research, and the other $90 went to buying nice cars and houses. 'Cause most people who aren't paid one red cent could have told you these results.
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10-18-2009 @ 2:30PM
SKL said...I think it's time for them to do a study on whether the parents' intoxication increases a child's chance of being in a car accident. And then once we've spend a few million bucks on that, we can study the various other things that happen to kids in a home where the parents are trashed.
As a taxpayer, I want my money back. Why can't the taxpayers ever demand their money back from these dummies??
10-18-2009 @ 2:41PM
SKL said...But Inger, is the cause really unknown in these cases? I mean, if a child dies in a house fire, is that SIDS too unless we prove whether it was the smoke or the flames that killed him?
The problem I see is that if they are including all of this in "SIDS," then they can't make any meaningful recommendations. (OK, I suppose "don't get drunk and sleep on your kid" is meaningful if your IQ is 50, but . . . .) I feel the recommendations such as making babies sleep on their backs lack credibility, because they are obviously not selecting their experimental and control groups properly. Making a baby sleep on its back causes it to sleep less deeply, and thus not develop as well as otherwise. Therefore they shouldn't make this recommendation without really solid proof. How can you have solid proof of causation when you are including drunken asphyxiations (and who knows what else) in the SIDS category?
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10-18-2009 @ 3:50PM
Inger said...I'm in agreement with you on this! And I don't think the cause is really unknown in a lot of cases, but it makes it easier to have one simple category to put things into.
The technical definition of SIDS is a death where the cause is not able to be dertermined with certainty during an autopsy. So I think the poor baby stuck in the house fire would probably not qualify as they could figure it out in an autopsy. :) The page I was looking at, The American Sudden Infant Death Syndrom Insitutre at www.sids.org, has a whole list of things you can do to help prevent sids which sounded to me like they were either suffocation hazards or pure coincidence (i.e. correlation does not equal causation). For example not putting your baby in bed with blankets and stuffed animals. Suffocation hazard. Waiting a year between pregnancies or not getting pregnant as a teen. Um... Possibly correlated but doubtful if the wait between pregnancies really has any effect on whether a child experiences crib death.
*steps down off soapbox. Wipes brow*
Ok, I feel better now. :)
10-20-2009 @ 3:02PM
Mary Sullivan said...Well, how much alcohol are they talking about? (I couldn't find that in the source article.) And do "drugs" include Rx drugs? What if a parent is taking an antidepressant, for instance, that causes sedation? We didn't really do purposeful "co-sleeping," but when we had 3 kids under 2, it wasn't uncommon to wake up with babies in the bed. It's so long ago, I can't even remember how often I had some wine after the kids went to bed, but I'm sure it happened. I have to imagine that a fair no. of cosleeping parents have a beer or wine in the p.m....they can't all be totally dry! Or can they? Maybe it's just me. I do think it's common sense that parenting forces (or should force) moderation. Besides role modeling and all of that, kids have a funny way of waking up at 2 a.m. with a raging fever or heinous cough or whatever and need to be driven to the doctor. If that's never happened to you, congrats! :)
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11-16-2009 @ 9:54AM
calicoblonde said...I have to disagree that most SIDS deaths are from suffocation. SIDS is attributed to a baby's death when no cause can be found; suffocation is a cause. If a baby has suffocated they have absolutely not died of SIDS.
Please spread the word about the fire retardant chemicals that are in all mattresses except truly organic ones, such as those made by Naturepedic. Outside of the US it's been known for 15 years that these chemicals escape from the mattress. And when they combine with everyday household fungus that grows in a baby's mattress (and an adult's mattress has far more fungus) from sweat and shed skin cells, a deadly nerve gas is created. This is why belly-sleeping babies are far more likely to die.
All traditional mattresses, especially but not limited to those slept on by previous children, must be wrapped in polythene bags to prevent the fire-retardant chemicals from escaping. BabeSafe makes the bags. When your baby sleeps on a used mattress the amount of fungus is compounded exponentially and the gases are activated faster and in larger quantity. This is why second and third born (and fourth and fifth) babies are far more likely to die than a first-born who got a new mattress. And it's why babies in ethnic minorities and those born to single mothers are more likely to die of SIDS-- the used mattress.
Links are not allowed on this site, but an essay I wrote on the $30 SIDS solution can be found by typing
www (dot) calicoblonde (dot) wordpress (dot) com.
Please spread the word.
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