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peer reviewed research on co-sleeping (it's more dangerous than cot-sleeping)



 
 
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  #1  
Old December 10th 03, 01:01 AM
Joshua Levy
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Posts: n/a
Default peer reviewed research on co-sleeping (it's more dangerous than cot-sleeping)

This is a annotated bibliography covering the safety of co-sleeping
with infants.

I have included EVERY study, which I can find an on-line abstract (or
the
entire paper is on line) in English, which meets the following
criteria:
1. The research was published in 2000 or later.
2. The research was peer reviewed.
3. The research focused on actual death rates (not suspected causes
or mechanisms).
4. The research compared death rates for co-sleepers vs.
non-co-sleepers.
5. The research was done in developed (not third world) countries.
This bibliography does NOT include editorials, opinion pieces, or
letters to the editor.
The main sources for these abstracts were PubMed, SCIRUS, and web
archives of medical journals.
If you find any other studies, please tell me, so I can add them.


Summary: of the seven studies found, six found co-sleeping to be more
dangerous than
cot sleeping, and one study found no added danger from co-sleeping.
No study found
co-sleeping safer than cat sleeping. Not one.

Quotes from the Research:

"The most conservative estimate showed that the risk of
suffocation increased by 20-fold when infants were placed to sleep in
adult beds rather
than in cribs. The public should be clearly informed of the attendant
risks." [SCHE03]

"Almost all SIDS deaths in Alaska occurred in association with prone
sleeping, bed
sharing, or sleeping outside a crib." [GESS01]

"bed sharing showed an increased risk of dying accidentally, when
compared with infants
sleeping in designated infant containers" [BEAL00]

"Bed-sharing appears to increase the proportion of unexplained deaths,
regardless of the
position of the infant." [THOG00]

The Papers:

[BEAL00]
Sudden infant death syndrome in South Australia 1968-97. Part 3: is
bed sharing safe for infants?
Beal SM, Byard RW
J Paediatr Child Health 2000 Dec 36:552-4
http://reviews.bmn.com/medline/searc...9&refer=scirus
"bed sharing showed an increased risk of dying accidentally, when
compared with infants
sleeping in designated infant containers"

[CARR01]
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, Bedsharing, Parental Weight, and Age at
Death
Cindie Carroll-Pankhurst and Edward A. Mortimer Jr
PEDIATRICS Vol. 107 No. 3 March 2001, pp. 530-536
http://pediatrics.aappublications.or...ode=pediatrics
"By demonstrating that among an urban population at high risk for
SIDS, bedsharing is
strongly associated with a younger age at death, independent of
any other factors, this
study provides evidence of a relationship between some SIDS-like
deaths and parent-infant
bedsharing, particularly if the parent is large."

[GESS01]
Association between sudden infant death syndrome and prone sleep
position, bed sharing,
and sleeping outside an infant crib in Alaska.
Gessner BD, Ives GC, Perham-Hester KA.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract
"Almost all SIDS deaths in Alaska occurred in association with
prone sleeping,
bed sharing, or sleeping outside a crib."

[IYAS03]
Risk factors for sudden infant death syndrome among northern plains
Indians.
Iyasu S, Randall LL, Welty TK, Hsia J, Kinney HC, Mandell F, McClain
M, Randall B, Habbe D, Wilson H, Willinger M.
JAMA. 2002 Dec 4;288(21):2717-23.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract
Found that infants who died were more likely to co-sleep (59.4%
vs. 55.4%), but this
relation was not statistically significant.

[SCHE03]
Where Should Infants Sleep? A Comparison of Risk for Suffocation of
Infants Sleeping in Cribs,
Adult Beds, and Other Sleeping Locations
N. J. Scheers, PhD, George W. Rutherford, MS and James S. Kemp, MD
PEDIATRICS Vol. 112 No. 4 October 2003, pp. 883-889
http://pediatrics.aappublications.or...ode=pediatrics
"Reported deaths of infants who suffocated on sleep surfaces other
than those designed
for infants are increasing. The most conservative estimate showed
that the risk of
suffocation increased by 20-fold when infants were placed to
sleep in adult beds rather
than in cribs. The public should be clearly informed of the
attendant risks."

[THOG00]
Sleep position and bed-sharing in sudden infant deaths: An examination
of autopsy findings
Jon R. Thogmartin MD, Charles F. Siebert, Jr MD and William A. Pellan
AS
From Palm Beach County Medical Examiner Office, West Palm Beach,
Florida.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...f85336bdc6f88d
The Journal of Pediatrics Volume 138, Issue 2 , February 2001, Pages
212-217
"Bed-sharing appears to increase the proportion of unexplained
deaths, regardless of the
position of the infant."

[WILL03]
Are risk factors for sudden infant death syndrome different at night?
Williams SM, Mitchell EA, Taylor BJ.
Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, Dunedin School of
Medicine, University of Otago, New Zealand.
Arch Dis Child. 2002 Oct;87(4):274-8.
"The interactions between time of death and bed sharing, not
sleeping in a cot or bassinet,
... [several other factors] were also significant, or almost so."

Papers Not Listed

[ARNE01]
Changes in the epidemiological pattern of sudden infant death syndrome
in southeast Norway, 1984-1998: implications for future prevention and
research.
Arnestad M, Andersen M, Vege A , Rognum TO
Arch Dis Child 2001 Aug 85:108-15
"For SIDS victims, an increase in the number of infants found dead
while co-sleeping is seen"
This paper was not included above because it was unclear if the quote
was due to the
popularity of co-sleeping, or if the rate of death was increasing.

[WILL01]
Scott Med J. 2001 Apr;46(2):43-7.
Sudden unexpected infant deaths in Dundee, 1882-1891: overlying or
SIDS?
Williams FL, Lang GA, Mage DT.
"It might be prudent to inform parents that co-sleeping is a risk
factor for SIDS
and that it should therefore be avoided."
Although this study technically fulfills all the requirements, it's
focus on deaths over
100 years ago caused me not to list it above.

[MUKA99]
Leg Med (Tokyo). 1999 Sep;1(1):18-24.
Sleeping environments as risk factors of sudden infant death syndrome
in Japan.
Mukai T, Tamaki N, Sato Y, Ohno Y, Miyazaki T, Nagamori H, Hara S,
Endo T.
Department of Forensic Medicine, Tokyo Medical University, 160-8402,
Tokyo, Japan
"In addition, the co-sleeping habit, which was not uncommon in
Japan, seems
to contribute to certain deaths of infants whose causes of death
were
controversial. In the investigation of SIDS, therefore, the
sleeping
environments, such as bedclothes and the co-sleeping habit, as
well as
the sleeping position should be taken into consideration as risk
factors."
This study was published one year before my cut-off, so it is not
included above.
However because many people claim data from Japan shows the safety of
co-sleeping,
including it here.

Complaints About These Papers

Mostly TBD, but here is a start:
....


Some Famous Papers That Didn't Make It (and Why)

The McKenna papers are very popular on AP and co-sleeping web sites,
but none are included for two reasons: they are all way too old, and
none of them measured actualy death rates in children. Really! These
papers which supposedly justify co-sleeping as an anti-SIDS method
NEVER studied babies who died of SIDS!

A more serious problem with McKenna's work is that it was based on
a discredited theory of SIDS. The modern view of McKenna work is
that is shows a serious problem with co-sleeping. That co-sleeping
infants are under stress. For example:

[HUNS02]
The sleep of co-sleeping infants when they are not co-sleeping:
evidence
that co-sleeping is stressful
Hunsley M, Thoman EB Dev Psychobiol. 2002
Jan;40(1):14-22.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract
"Each of these differences indicates a markedly lower arousal
level in the long-term co-sleeping infants. This sleep pattern
has been repeatedly found to be an indicator of stress. We infer
that a major source of stress for these infants is the experience
of sleep disturbance documented for infants when they were
co-sleeping.
Based on extensive evidence for long-term effects of early
stress, we
conclude that co-sleeping should have significant implications
for
infants' neurobehavioral development."

The famous 1999 study by the Consumer Product Safty Commission (a US
government
department responsible for regulating cribs and beds) is not included
here
because it was published one year before the cut off. It found
serious risk
associated with co-sleeping, just as all the studies here did.

Many people ask about Dr. Sears's research, but I can not find a
single peer-reviewed
paper every published by Dr. Sears. I have looked at some of his web
pages,
and although they often state that co-sleeping is protective of SIDS,
the papers he
cites are typically very hold (mid 1980s to 1990s). He cites papers
my McKenna and
others in the same lab: Moska, and Richard, which did not study
infants with SIDS
at all.

Other web pages I've seen have vague references to "New Zealand
studies" or "British
studies", which are not specific enough to track down.
  #2  
Old December 10th 03, 06:27 AM
Ericka Kammerer
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default peer reviewed research on co-sleeping (it's more dangerous than cot-sleeping)

Joshua Levy wrote:


Summary: of the seven studies found, six found co-sleeping to be more
dangerous than
cot sleeping, and one study found no added danger from co-sleeping.
No study found
co-sleeping safer than cat sleeping. Not one.


The Papers:

[BEAL00]
Sudden infant death syndrome in South Australia 1968-97. Part 3: is
bed sharing safe for infants?
Beal SM, Byard RW
J Paediatr Child Health 2000 Dec 36:552-4
http://reviews.bmn.com/medline/searc...9&refer=scirus
"bed sharing showed an increased risk of dying accidentally, when
compared with infants
sleeping in designated infant containers"



No evidence in the abstract that any analysis was done
regarding whether co-sleeping was done according to the
guidelines for safe co-sleeping.



[CARR01]
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, Bedsharing, Parental Weight, and Age at
Death
Cindie Carroll-Pankhurst and Edward A. Mortimer Jr
PEDIATRICS Vol. 107 No. 3 March 2001, pp. 530-536
http://pediatrics.aappublications.or...ode=pediatrics
"By demonstrating that among an urban population at high risk for



Again, no evidence that there was any analysis
considering whether deaths occured when safe co-sleeping
guidelines were followed or not.



[GESS01]
Association between sudden infant death syndrome and prone sleep
position, bed sharing,
and sleeping outside an infant crib in Alaska.
Gessner BD, Ives GC, Perham-Hester KA.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract
"Almost all SIDS deaths in Alaska occurred in association with
prone sleeping,
bed sharing, or sleeping outside a crib."



But you neglected this part of the abstract:
"Of 40 infants who slept with a parent at the time of death, only
1 infant who slept supine with a non-drug-using parent on an adult
nonwater mattress was identified."

Therefore, one can surmise that every other infant who died
of SIDS while sleeping with a parent were not supine, were
sleeping with a drug-using parent, or were on a waterbed--
all clearly prohibited by safe co-sleeping guidelines.



[IYAS03]
Risk factors for sudden infant death syndrome among northern plains
Indians.
Iyasu S, Randall LL, Welty TK, Hsia J, Kinney HC, Mandell F, McClain
M, Randall B, Habbe D, Wilson H, Willinger M.
JAMA. 2002 Dec 4;288(21):2717-23.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract
Found that infants who died were more likely to co-sleep (59.4%
vs. 55.4%), but this
relation was not statistically significant.



...so nothing to take to the bank here...



[SCHE03]
Where Should Infants Sleep? A Comparison of Risk for Suffocation of
Infants Sleeping in Cribs,
Adult Beds, and Other Sleeping Locations
N. J. Scheers, PhD, George W. Rutherford, MS and James S. Kemp, MD
PEDIATRICS Vol. 112 No. 4 October 2003, pp. 883-889
http://pediatrics.aappublications.or...ode=pediatrics



...again, no information on analysis taking safe
co-sleeping guidelines into account.



[THOG00]
Sleep position and bed-sharing in sudden infant deaths: An examination
of autopsy findings
Jon R. Thogmartin MD, Charles F. Siebert, Jr MD and William A. Pellan
AS
From Palm Beach County Medical Examiner Office, West Palm Beach,
Florida.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...f85336bdc6f88d
The Journal of Pediatrics Volume 138, Issue 2 , February 2001, Pages
212-217



...still no analysis taking safe co-sleeping guidelines
into account.

So, I have yet to see any evidence that co-sleeping
while following safe co-sleeping guidelines is a problem.
Got any evidence there?

Best wishes,
Ericka

 




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