| 'Don't sleep with your baby' is new cot death advice
(Filed: 11/05/2004)
Parents are being advised by the Department of Health not to sleep in the same bed as their baby.
The updated advice on avoiding cot death follows medical research in The Lancet showing that bed-sharing could be unsafe for infants in the first eight weeks of life.
The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths (FSID) also updated its advice alerting parents of the risks.
Its new leaflet, distributed to all maternity units in England, includes the advice: "The safest place for your baby to sleep is in a cot in your room for the first six months.
"While it's lovely to have your baby with you for a cuddle or a feed, it's safest to put your baby back in their cot before you go to sleep."
The leaflet also emphasises the risk of sleeping in bed with a baby if you are a smoker, even if you never smoke in bed, and includes existing advice for cutting the risk of cot death by placing babies on their back to sleep, cutting out smoking and making sure the baby does not get too hot.
Cot death - Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) - claims the lives on average of seven babies a week in Britain.
The Lancet study investigated 745 cot death cases alongside known risk factors.
The researchers, part of the European Concerted Action on SIDS, found that six out of 10 cot death cases in Europe could probably be attributed to putting babies on their front or side.
Prof Robert Carpenter, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: "It is safest if a baby sleeps in a cot, in the parents' room."
Research has shown that babies who have their heads covered, whose breathing is blocked in some way, or who become too hot may be more likely to die suddenly. | |
