To use a family bed or to not use a family bed – it’s many parents’ dilemma. Yet, for all the praise about bonding that family beds receive, the negatives are a precipitous downside – one, in fact, that negates all benefits. Putting the parents, possible older children, and a new baby in a bed together is said to synchronize sleep cycles and help the baby rest better, but the CPSC speaks against it, citing suffocation hazards.
Yet, the negative facets rarely register on an individual’s radar until a tragedy is recounted in greater detail. South Carolina newspaper The State did such a piece recently. Describing the experiences of one family in Richland County, the piece goes onto discuss why cosleeping is hazardous for infants and the possibility that cases diagnosed as SIDS may, in fact, involve dangerous sleeping arrangements.
If your child is 1 years old or younger, how strong is he or she? How well can he or she move? Even the most developmentally-advanced babies, however, find themselves trapped when a larger person in the bed rolls over or even accidentally lays an arm or leg across an airway. Because the child can neither move nor lift, he or she often suffocates.
Gary Watts, the Richland County coroner, quoted in the State piece mentions that more infant deaths may be attributed to cosleepin than previously assumed. In the event a child suffocates in the family bed, a coroner asks the caregiver to recreate the situation in order to rule out SIDS, which does not involve a dangerous sleeping arrangement. Aside from family beds, laying a baby to sleep on a couch or arm chair, in a crib with a comforter or pillow, or in a room with a dog are also considered sleeping hazards.
Some habits can be difficult to break, however – including cosleeping, which may have been used by families for generations. About this, Watts told the press:
“My grandmother did it, my mother did it, and I know I did it. But it’s unsafe. At some point, you have to realize it’s a danger to the infant. If you want to have a child in the room – put him in a bassinet beside your bed.”
