Milwaukee is on a campaign to stamp out bed-sharing. Several babies have died when sleeping in bed with Mom, Grandma, or Mom's boyfriend. The city officials want to convince people that they ought never ever ever ever ever sleep with a baby. Some people are talking about passing laws to make it illegal, charging parents with murder if a baby should die in the parents' bed.
Now, I don't think a baby should be sleeping with Grandma or Mom's boyfriend. I even wonder a little about Baby sleeping with Daddy alone. Under no circumstances should a drunk or high mom be sleeping with her baby. But those scenarios are quite different from a sober breastfeeding mom sleeping with her baby.
Cassie tipped me off to a news report on bed-sharing. And the findings certainly ring true. Although alcohol has been implicated in many of the recent deaths, although there have been a disproportionate amount of deaths in the poverty-stricken areas of the city, there is only ONE 100%-consistent factor in these deaths. The babies were formula-fed. None of the babies were sleeping with a nursing mother.
That's critical.
And it's why bed-sharing must not be made illegal.
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WELL, ISN'T THAT INTERESTING? As in, I'm completely not surprised. It's hard to roll over on what is, essentially, still part of your own body.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I've heard, most of the deaths did not occur in a bed, but on a couch. It is kinda hard for an obese, sleeping, drunk/ high inner-city resident not to roll onto and smother a baby while on a couch, no?
ReplyDeleteI hate these deaths in Milwaukee. These irresponsible parents (and grandparents!) need to be held accountable and charged with murder. Changing the law to make co-sleeping illegal seems like the wrong answer to the problem.
Good point, EC.
ReplyDeleteI, frankly, do not want to think about what kind of mother I would have been without the sleep I got while my babies were nursing and/or peacefully sleeping with me.
Plus, even as a nursing mom, it was much more dangerous for me to fall asleep propped on the couch with James in my arms, because I was desperately tired, but uninformed and too scared to sleep with him, than it was for Sophia to sleep properly in bed with me, on a flat surface without pillows or blankets near her.When people are told, to NEVER sleep with their babies, they come up with other solutions, and my case, not a safe one. I wonder if the lady in the news report ever had a newborn of her own, if so she has forgotten what it was like.
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