Ateah – co-sleeping vs bed-sharing

Maternal bed sharing practices has been a long time, I guess, practice.  Some parents will say that this is something that, you know, their parents did with them and they feel very comfortable doing it.  Certainly it’s easier for mothers who are breastfeeding to bring their infant in to bed with them.  So it’s commonly done around the world.  But we know now that there are risks involved with bed sharing.  In some parts of the world a mother and an infant might share a bed on a hard surface on the ground or in a place where there isn’t the same sort of risks that we often have in other countries – North America for sure, Canada and the US.  We often have very soft mattresses, a lot of bed clothing and, you know, it’s a very warm, close environment.  And unfortunately we’ve had, you know, many instances where parents, mother or father, but usually the mother because they are the closest to the infant usually in bed, can rollover on an infant or the infant gets wedged between the side of the bed and the wall. And all of these deaths are so tragic and 100% preventable.  

And so, there are certain factors in particular that make bed sharing risky for example when there are a lot of covers, when a bed mattress is particularly soft, when a parent is under the influence of drugs or alcohol, when a parent is unusually tired.   

Healthcare providers and experts are looking at promoting – we call it ‘co-sleeping’ rather than ‘bed sharing’.  So that for the first six months what we like to do is encourage moms to breastfeed, absolutely, up to a year, two years, breastfeeding is so very, very important.  But at night that the infant after breastfeeding be placed on their own sleep surface and we say a government approved crib.  Their own separate sleep surface on their back and without a lot of covers that could possibly cover their mouths.