Breastsleeping is a word coined by the world’s leading mother-baby sleep researcher for 30 years, Professor James McKenna. It is one word intentionally and represents breastfeeding with cosleeping in the absence of all known hazardous factors.
I had never known exhaustion like I did until I had a hungry newborn 24/7. For weeks I slept on the couch with E by my side in her Snoo and it was so hard for me to stay awake during feeding. Day or night, it didn't matter. After I felt dangerously drowsy driving E back from her first checkup appointment I then began to read Sweet Sleep recommended to be by another mom for cosleeping education. Breastsleeping was a game changer for me. I started breastsleeping during day naps and soon at night or early morning after E would wake up. I finally felt more rested and not a danger with lack of sleep. It also helped keep my breastmilk supply up, E's weight on track, and who doesn't love the oxytocin (the feel-good hormone) from cuddling your baby for hours.
Cosleeping benefits
Safe cosleeping within physical sensory proximity in the same room reduces SIDS risk up to 50%. Mother and baby both sleep lighter and have more wakings; this sleep pattern is intentional, normal and safe! Studies have shown that deep sleeping infants (as opposed to lighter stage sleeping) are harder to rouse which places them at greater risk of SIDS. Other benefits of cosleeping are changes in infant and maternal behavior, increased milk production, metabolism, feeding frequency, mother’s hormonal status, infants hormonal status. All of this intentionally and naturally maximizes infant safety. One cosleeping option is to bedshare where mother and baby share the same sleep surface. It is important to know that bedsharing is supported around the world and can be done following safe practices.
Who supports bedsharing
The WHO, UNICEF, La Leche League International and the Academy of Breast Feeding Medicine all agree bedsharing per se is not dangerous. Dr. Nils Bergman, the worlds leading SIDS researcher wrote: it is becoming clear to many doctors and researchers that “non-uniform and unverifiable information on the causes of death” in SIDS studies led to conclusions about bedsharing that are not supported. Dr Peter Blair, the top SIDS epidemiologist, has been supporting this for years and published a statement in 2019 stating that safe bedsharing is possible and existing evidence does not support the conclusion that bedsharing among breastfeeding infants causes SIDS.
The AAP in the US does not provide guidelines for bedsharing other than to not bedshare. However biological anthropology and the reality of surveyed parents conflicts with this. In addition, without education as to what can make sleeping arrangements dangerous, the message confuses a world-wide-normal and healthy human behavior. In the US and Canada there is fear mongering, fallacies, and stories with no background on contributing risk factors. There is also a double standard because while infant deaths in cribs occur at a higher rate than cosleeping - there no shaming or taking advantage of those parents.
Global Culture
Bedsharing between a breastfeeding mother and baby happens with 90% of the world’s population. It is the biological norm and what the human infant body is designed to do. When parents have been surveyed asking if at any point did they bedshare whether planned or not: 70%+ have said yes. That reinforces why safe cosleeping education should be given to new parents.
An example of safe bedsharing success is in Japan where parents universally sleep with their infants, not only has one of the lowest infant mortality rates and lowest SIDS rates in the world. SIDS rates continue to decline in Japan as maternal smoking approaches practically 0, and exclusive breastfeeding increases. This suggests yet again that it is not bedsharing, but how it is safely practiced, that should be the focus.
Without safe cosleeping education parents will not know the risk factors to avoid. Examples of bedsharing risks that should be avoided are unsupervised sleep in dock-a-tots, falling asleep in a chair or sofa, formula-fed (which doubles SIDS risk), drugs or alcohol and maternal smoking (which affects baby's sleep arousal). To learn more about safe sleeping review Professor James McKenna's Safe Cosleeping Guidelines page at the Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory at Notre Dame. La Leche League International also has "Safe Sleep Seven" guidelines and the book Sweet Sleep was invaluable to me as a new mom. Professor James McKenna's Safe Infant Sleep is highly recommended and further breaks down complicated political and social aspects of sleep safety, which is good for a parent to have as reinforcement knowledge to make their own choices.
We are a breastfeeding culture, it is not going away. The legitimization of bedsharing and breastsleeping is an important issue. It needs to be known that bedsharing is a universal human norm and can be done safely. Parents must be better educated and supported.
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