Cribs for Kids Educates the Public about the Dangers of Co-Sleeping!
Thank you Nayla, who wrote me…
I learned about an aggressive attack campaign on co-sleeping sponsored by “Cribs for Kids,” and an effort to find a test case of a healthy co-sleeping case that results in a child’s death in order to start a witch hunt. Doctors are apparently already supposed to determine where the baby sleeps in a household.
I checked out the Cribs for Kids website looking for supporters since I suspected crib manufacturers, lo and behold here’s what I find:
http://www.sids-pa.org/SIDS-ABOUT-FUND.htm
Both Graco and Toys R Us, as well as Walmart and other familiar names, are sponsoring SIDS of Pennsylvania which is fueling the anti-co-sleeping rush. Please spread the word. Cribs for Kids has chapters in 33 state.
I went all over their site and in Education it gives a list of the causes of SIDS, and factors for removing risk and they’re totally delusional. They promote breastfeeding (or so they say) they promote the crib being in the same room as mother (because, you know, it’s safer for baby to be near mom!), they’ve come to the conclusion that sucking is healthy for a baby (so they urge mothers to “give baby a pacifier”) but they can’t sign off on the safety of adult beds. Yet, and here is the rub, none of these types of groups will think “hmmmm, how about we promote safe BED SHARING? bed sharing meets all the requirements for saving babies from SIDS, so why not promote it and educate the public about the safe way to accomplish it? Here’s one for the capitalists, too, why aren’t the crib manufacturers getting into the family bed business? These people are kooks. Dangerous Kooks.
Anyway, enjoy the comic, more on the way!
xox,
Heather
Hugh said,
January 14, 2008 @ 9:45 am
Hi,
Please go to the Scripps Howard News Service…
http://scrippsnews.s10113.gridserver.com/
In their “saving babies” section you will see the bigger picture of how this battle is being formed. It is real, and they are trying to use “tobacco science” to build a platform to point their finger from. They use the good identification of a real life issue that needs scrutiny… I.E. the human mistakes made in the data collection phase of an infant death scene. That “scene” must be difficult, as there is a dead baby and a horrified family present. However, they then leap into saying that because of the lack of standard data, the kids did not die of SIDS, but co-sleeping! Cribs for kids uses that data, and SIDS organisations like “First Candle” endorse it to help point the finger at co-sleeping.
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January 14, 2008 @ 1:24 pm
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sewathomemama said,
January 14, 2008 @ 6:48 pm
infuriating & insulting.
Trekkifulshay said,
January 14, 2008 @ 6:49 pm
At my son’s allergist appointment today I was asked to sign something saying he sleeps in a safe crib, with sheets washed in hot water etc. I declined and got a talking to about crib safety so I mentioned my son almost hanging himself when he learned how to climb out of his (or when I found him eating the paint off of it which the swore would never chip so it was my son’s fault.) - which is when we went to co-sleeping full time- but it was scary to see how the nurses went from kind to really upset with me the crib-less wonder.
After being in trouble last month at another doctor because my son doesn’t drink whole cow’s milk I’m beginning to wonder when DCF will knock on my door…
janaki said,
January 14, 2008 @ 8:49 pm
Right, of course, it’s the same way that formula companies say they “promote” breastfeeding, but it’s all a bunch of lip-service and “Oh, breast is best, but really, why bother? We put DHA and iron into our stuff, too, and so therefore it’s close to breastmilk!” Grr…
mamataters said,
January 15, 2008 @ 8:51 am
If you look at their website, they have the following disclaimer:
“This material is for your private information and we are not soliciting any action based upon it. The material is based upon information that we consider reliable, but we do not represent that it is correct.”
Of course you have to click on the little icon at the bottom of the page that says “disclaimer”. So no one will ever see it. Grrr.
TracyKM said,
January 15, 2008 @ 12:24 pm
In the Feb 08 “Today’s Parent” magazine (an award winning, Canadian, ‘mainstream’ parenting mag) there is an editorial supporting co-sleeping and it contains lots of negativity towards recent campaigns claiming co-sleeping is bad/dangerous. A refreshing read. And I don’t believe that you never hear that b.f. reduces SIDS risk. I even heard that on the Dr Phil show when one of the Dr. Sears kids was on! And at least here in Canada, in any info on SIDS, b.f. is listed as one way to reduce the risk.
janaki said,
January 15, 2008 @ 4:44 pm
I always see breastfeeding as a way to reduce the risk oof SIDS. Placing baby on their back to sleep, breastfeeding, and not smoking are the big 3.
Lyonside said,
January 15, 2008 @ 7:14 pm
I thought there was research that came out last year that in a limited study (something like 25 babies) of infant deaths attributed to SIDS, a majority were caused by a brain chemical imbalance that prevented the baby from waking up when in a low-oxygen environment or position.
I understand the anti-cosleeping concept for CERTAIN PEOPLE. Heavy sleepers, #1, restless sleepers, #2. My husband has always slept through the baby crying, even in the same room, and he’s a big guy who moves around a lot (total bed hog), Also, most cases I hear of cosleeping deaths, there are extenuating circumstances - usually the “responsible” adult is sleeping off alchol or drug use. Not exactly the reason to ban it for everyone.
But my 11 month old daughter has always been a restless, difficult sleeper from day 1 (blame the ICU - she sleeps better with noise and lights). She simply does not need as much sleep as the experts say, and she barely naps. Right now she naps like a typical 4 year old (once a day, midday). At night she falls asleep in my arms and placing her in her crib lasts about an hour, if I’m lucky. She recharges with 15 minute catnaps. But if we cosleep I can get 3-5 hours at a stretch. It’s the only way I’ve gotten any sleep since she was born. I end up half the night sleeping with her firmly in the crook of one arm, both of us on our side, and the covers nowhere near her face. I don’t move much when I sleep on my side, and I’m a light sleeper.
We’ve had no problems, although she’s now at the age where she tries to climb over me and stand up on the couch or against the bed headboard. She’s taken a tumble or two as a result, but no more than any other baby. If everykid throughout all of humanity who coslept was in mortal danger, the human race wouldn’t have survived. Take precautions, sure, but don’t ban it. For some of us, this works fine.
Meitis said,
January 15, 2008 @ 7:36 pm
It is Dr Sears fault that I co-sleep. My dad gave me (while pregnant with my firstborn) a parenting book by Dr. Sears and his wife, Martha. It covered (among other things) co-sleeping. I recalled that Dr Sears suggest (in the book) to invest in a king sized bed rather than a crib. I just checked Dr. Sears website (askdrsears.com) he still supports co-sleeping. You can thank his fourth child, Hayden, for that. I co-sleep with my youngest son. My older children co-sleep with each other. Instead of bunkbeds my children sleep on full-sized beds. I do have a play-pen set-up for my youngest. The last time I used it as place to put him as I change the bedding on my king-sized bed.
Sarah V. said,
January 16, 2008 @ 2:00 am
Two points here. Firstly, the evidence that bedsharing *reduces* SIDS deaths pretty much comes from epidemiological studies – studies done comparing SIDS rates between other societies and our own. Now, these are problematical because there are all sorts of differences between mattresses/bedding in different societies which mean that the results may not be applicable to here – and, of course, it’s hard to even tell for sure whether the results are due to the differences in bedsharing rates, given all the other childrearing practices that may differ between different societies. When studies have been done on SIDS deaths here, the picture has been pretty different. There have been a number of studies comparing SIDS infants and non-SIDS infants with respect to bedsharing rates and other factors, and not only have none of them have shown SIDS to be associated with lower bedsharing rates, but there have actually been some studies that show SIDS to be associated with *higher* bedsharing rates *even after* correcting for factors such as smoking or heavy bedding. (See http://tinyurl.com/395fs7, http://tinyurl.com/yp52w2, and http://tinyurl.com/yt3xq8.)
So, currently, not only can we not say that bedsharing reduces SIDS, but there is concerning evidence that it *may* reduce the risks. It’s not conclusive because it’s very difficult to get conclusive evidence on something this complex, but there is enough worrying evidence there that I don’t think it’s that unreasonable to suggest that crib sleeping might be better at least until we have more data.
Secondly, families who can’t afford cribs may well also be families who can’t afford to bedshare according to guidelines. Bear in mind that if you’ve got a saggy old mattress which you can’t afford to replace, or if you can’t even afford a bed and are sleeping on a couch – which is true for a lot of the families targeted by this kind of campaign – then bedsharing *does* have extra risks. Regardless of what you think about the risks of bedsharing according to safety guidelines, I think we can all agree that if you’re in a situation where you *can’t* follow safety guidelines then you *are* better off not bedsharing.
mammal said,
January 16, 2008 @ 5:50 am
@trekkifulshay:
“with sheets washed in hot water”
correct me if i’m wrong, but is there another way to clean sheets than by washing them in hot water (and some soap of course)?
Sarah V. said,
January 16, 2008 @ 6:43 am
Oh, bother it. My comment above should of course have read that there is concerning evidence that bedsharing may *increase* the risk of SIDS. I must start proofreading again some time…
ShinaB said,
January 16, 2008 @ 8:04 am
Sarah V., in your post you talk about how parents who can’t afford cribs might also not be able to afford to properly family bed, and at the heart of that statement is a reiteration of Hathor’s statements. If this fund can donate cribs to families, why can’t they, instead of donating cribs, donate the means for a proper family bed? It’s possible to cosleep, even if one can’t afford a bed. I remember when I was very young and our family lost everything in a fire. We had no homeowners insurance and no money, but we did manage to afford camping cushions to lay on the floor of our apartment where I coslept with my siblings and my parents coslept my baby sister. It wouldn’t cost any more money to educate about family bed and donate materials for family bed than it costs to peddle bunk information and donate expensive cribs.
Lyonside said,
January 16, 2008 @ 3:28 pm
>Secondly, families who can’t afford cribs may well also be families who can’t afford to bedshare according to guidelines.
Along those lines, families that can’t afford cribs are more likely to be in transient or overcropwded situations, to not afford prenatal and newborn care, to have preterm or low birth rate babies, the list goes on… my hunch is that cosleeping is not so much of a risk factor as POVERTY, and all the risks and results that go with it.
jessafee said,
January 17, 2008 @ 2:40 pm
I thought McKenna and others have already shown that babies actually learn how to breathe from babywearing and bedsharing? And I had also read all of the articles last year about the new SIDS findings an thought to myself, I *knew* it! It didn’t make sense to me that SIDS could occur more frequently with bedsharing since it didn’t reflect what I had experienced (being able to monitor my babies breathing and prevent choking to death during vomiting even better) and what everyone else I know had experienced as well. Alternately, how many of us thirty-somethings slept on our tummies in cribs and *didn’t* stop breathing? I know I slept in a crib with a bumper, comforter, pillow, and ~GASP!~ stuffed animals. I don’t recall enjoying it, remember getting my arm stuck in it, and never made my babies sleep in one. But I have been known to let others learn for themselves that cribs are usele$$ (especially little sisters who think they know everything and insist that their baby will be the one baby who will enjoy sleeping in a crib across the hall). And if BRU was really concerned about infant safety, they wouldn’t sell half of the toxic, plastic crap they hawk to expectant parents. I know I’m rambling, but let me finish by saying that I do think cribs are safer for *some* babies but only because of *some* parents. Many parents today are altered either from alcohol, OTC or RX drugs and sleep aids, and shouldn’t share a family bed. For those parents, there are some really great alternatives to traditional cage-like cribs such as the Ambi (sp?) baby hammock and Arms Reach Co-Sleeper. Also, advocating for keeping the crib in the same room with mom actually is a really big step for some parents who would have otherwise put the baby in a nursery down the hall or even on another FLOOR of the McMansion, because, after all, that’s what those baby monitors are for, right?!
I agree that cribs are not the solution. and that teaching safe co-sleeping is the answer. I am a La Leche League Leader and I talk about safe co-sleeping with new moms all the time. It is the very best way for mamas to get the most sleep possible with a baby/child, not to mention the numerous benefits outlined in various bedsharing books*. So if you’re passionate about this topic, volunteer to speak at your local LLL group, Parents As Teachers or WIC office.
“Be the change”…and please don’t let this ancient wisdom go by the wayside.
*A few good family bed books (probably on Hathor’s Bookshelf):
Sleeping With Your Baby by James McKenna
The Family Bed by Tine Thevenin
Three in a Bed by Deborah Jackson
Sarah V. said,
January 18, 2008 @ 1:43 am
ShinaB – I can think of several practical problems with providing family bed materials rather than cribs (one of them being, since you raised the issue of cost, that in fact a double mattress, blankets and transport for the mattress *would* work out more expensive than the cribs they’re donating). However, the most overriding reason seems to me to be that – as I said – there is decent research out there showing that there may be an increased risk of SIDS even with ’safe’ bedsharing. I am not talking about the poor studies and reasoning that pro-co-sleepers (rightly) critique. I am talking about studies that have controlled for factors such as smoking, poverty, bedding and couch sleeping, that have looked specifically at SIDS so that the issue won’t be confused by wedging or overlying deaths – and some of which have *still* found an association between bedsharing and SIDS even after controlling for all those factors.
Whether you like it or not, it isn’t ‘bunk’ to say that research suggests that there may possibly be dangers associated even with safe co-sleeping. It isn’t ‘delusional’. It isn’t just something invented by ‘dangerous kooks’. I loved co-sleeping with my first and I would love it if the research showed something other than what it does, but that doesn’t mean I can ignore what it does show. So, I think one major reason to give out cribs rather than family bed materials is that, even if this group went to the trouble and expense of trying to overcome the possible problems with doing things this way, they would still be promoting a method of infant sleep that research suggests might still be associated with increased risk compared to crib sleeping.
Lyonside – Poverty certainly is a risk factor for SIDS, as you say. However, the studies that found bedsharing to be a risk did control for socioeconomic status, so, if bedsharing is a risk, it’s one over and above any risk from poverty. Of course, the risks from poverty are likely to be much higher and it would be great to be able to eliminate those as well!
Jessafee – McKenna’s research showed that bedsharing seemed to have a positive effect on infants’ breathing patterns and other markers of their physiological functioning (he hasn’t done any research that I know of into physiological effects of babywearing – the only such research that I know of is into kangaroo care for premature babies and newborns). This, of course, was very exciting at the time as it raised real hopes that this might have beneficial effects in terms of lowering SIDS risk. Unfortunately, further research comparing bedsharing rates among SIDS infants and non-SIDS infants not only did not bear out any evidence of a reduction in risk, but suggested the risk might even be increased by bedsharing (some of the case-control studies show increased risk even after controlling for other factors, some show no difference in risk, none of them show reduction in risk).
But that’s a good point about the more friendly kind of cribs. I don’t think the crib being ‘cage-like’ is really an issue for babies, but I also don’t think those Pack ‘n’ Play cribs are the most comfortable. Maybe what we should be doing is writing to the makers of the Amby Baby and the Arms Reach to petition them to join in giving free cribs to the Cribs for Kids project?
Hathor said,
January 18, 2008 @ 7:36 am
http://www.askdrsears.com/html/10/t102200.asp
http://www.askdrsears.com/html/7/T071000.asp
Sarah V. said,
January 20, 2008 @ 2:26 am
Hathor – Neither of the two links you gave discusses SIDS risk or the research studies I linked to that show an association between SIDS and bedsharing.
In the first page you linked to, Dr Sears says that we can’t make any comments on the relative risk of bedsharing and crib sleeping because no-one has studied overall rates of both and rates of SIDS cases in both to get a ratio of risk for the two. This would indeed be a great study, but there are practical problems – because SIDS is rare, especially when proper precautions are taken, it would require a detailed survey of thousands and thousands of families in order to look for any significant differences between the figures. What Dr Sears seems to be completely ignoring, however, is that what researchers *have* been doing is working from the other side of the matter – surveying groups of SIDS infants and comparison groups of non-SIDS infants, and comparing bedsharing and other factors between the two groups. This type of study is known as a case-control study, and is a well-recognised way of studying rare diseases. While the results are less reliable than those from prospective studies, they can still provide good data if efforts are made to control for confounding factors. Three such studies have shown higher rates of bedsharing among the SIDS group than among the comparison group *even after controlling for other factors*. That is not data that we should be ignoring. But Dr Sears, and most of the pro-bedsharing crowd, *are* ignoring it, because it doesn’t fit with their dogma.
Sears also mentions the Mothering article that supposedly estimated higher death rates for crib sleepers than bedsharers. But this article (which can be found at http://www.mothering.com/articles/new_baby/sleep/kimmel.html) doesn’t look at SIDS rates at all, but only at rates of accidental smothering (which is *not* the same thing as SIDS – SIDS is, by definition, infant death where no cause can be found). Accidental smothering is rarer even than SIDS, so, even if bedsharing were less likely to cause accidental smothering than crib sleeping, that still wouldn’t necessarily mean that it was safer overall if it also causes a higher SIDS rate. In fact, of course, it’s a moot point – smothering in bed is something that’s almost entirely avoidable if correct precautions are taken regardless of whether this is a bed or a crib. So, it’s a moot point to quibble about whether unsafe crib sharing poses a higher or lower risk of smothering than unsafe bedsharing – the obvious thing to do is to take precautions to remove the risk, and, if everyone did that, cases of infant smothering in bed would be so rare as to be negligible. But that wouldn’t do anything about *SIDS deaths*, and doesn’t alter the fact that studies looking specifically at *SIDS deaths* have found an association with bedsharing.
The second article you linked to discusses Sears, and McKenna’s, research into breathing patterns in bedsharing infants. As you know, this research showed improvements in the breathing patterns of bedsharing infants compared to non-bedsharing infants. This research was, of course, very exciting, because it raised the possibility that bedsharing *might* reduce SIDS rates, and Sears was entirely right in calling for more research to be done in this matter. However, a lot of people make the error of thinking we can skip that research and just assume that, because the research shows improvements in some physiological parameters, this *must* translate into a reduced rate of SIDS. In fact, it isn’t possible to conclude that, because we don’t know enough about what causes SIDS. The correct way to proceed from there is to look at actual SIDS cases compared to non-SIDS cases to see whether there is in fact any association (positive or negative) with bedsharing. And, as I said – this has been done, and repeated studies have *not* shown bedsharing to be less common among SIDS infants than non-SIDS infants, and some studies have even shown that SIDS infants are *more* likely to have been bedsharing than comparison groups. So, as exciting as McKenna’s research has been, there are simply no signs that it translates into a reduction of SIDS rates in bedsharers, and some evidence that the reverse is true.
I agree that this subject calls forth levels of hysteria that aren’t warranted, and that articles like the one you were discussing are no help in increasing knowledge of this complex subject. I agree that scare stories about individual cases don’t help at all (and *why* people continue to opt for focusing on poor-quality evidence like that when much better-quality evidence is available is a complete and continued mystery to me). But, when the better-quality evidence is also pointing to a possible SIDS/bedsharing association, that is not something we should be ignoring no matter how inconvenient that evidence is or how little it suits us. The studies are there; I’ve linked to their abstracts for people to check out. They’re not conclusive, but the best evidence we have still suggests possible risk. So, just because people don’t agree with you doesn’t necessarily mean they’re delusional or dangerous kooks. Sometimes, it means they actually know more about the evidence.
Lyonside said,
January 20, 2008 @ 6:07 pm
A CBS writeup of the small-scale SIDS study that shows a biochemical cause (defective brain stem mechanism that use seratonin o that the brain does not wake the child up) is here: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/31/health/main2140832.shtml
This made my local paper as well. This article talks about a combination of factos: thye brain disorder, environmental factors, and the developmental stage of the infant.