More parents sharing beds with babies
Doctors sharply divided about the dangers, benefits.
"More American parents are sharing their bed with their babies, new research has
found.
Nearly 13 percent of parents reported usually sharing their bed with their baby
in 2000, up from 5.5 percent in 1993, the study says.
Almost half of parents said their infant spent at least some time sleeping on an
adult bed during the previous two weeks, and 20 percent of parents said their infant
slept with them in an adult bed more than half the time.
The greatest increase was among white mothers, a group that has historically lower
rates of sleeping with their babies than other races or ethnic groups, says Marian
Willinger, lead author of the study and a researcher in the pregnancy and perinatology
branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
"I was surprised at the prevalence of routine bed sharing, though not as surprised
by the numbers of infants who spent some time sleeping in an adult bed," Willinger
says. "As a parent, you know babies do end up in your bed."
The study appears in the January issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent
Medicine.
Despite the increasing popularity, bed-sharing remains controversial. Those opposed
to the practice, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, warn that sleeping
with adults puts infants at risk of suffocating under tangled sheets and heavy quilts,
of falling off the bed, or of becoming wedged between heavy furniture or between
the headboard and the bed.
Supporters of bed-sharing feel even more strongly about the benefits.
Research has shown that bed-sharing increases the frequency and duration of breast-feeding,
and that the mother's breathing and body heat help regulate the infant's breathing,
heart rate and body temperature.
"Human mothers and babies are biologically designed to sleep together," says James
McKenna, a professor of anthropology and director of the Mother-Baby Sleep Laboratory
at the University of Notre Dame. "It's the species-wide, normal human pattern. It's
only been in the last 100 years or so that any culture has departed from that."
Indeed, bed-sharing has remained popular among some U.S. demographic groups all
along.
In another study that appears in the same issue of the journal, researchers interviewed
369 women living in Washington, D.C., and found 48 percent routinely shared a bed
with their infant.
The women were mainly black (82 percent) and poor (68 percent reported incomes below
the federal poverty level). About 16 percent of the women were Hispanic and 2 percent
were white, Asian or another ethnicity.
Black women, regardless of income, were the most likely to sleep with their children,
the study found.
The interviews, which were conducted in 1995 and 1996, asked mothers about their
sleeping arrangements at three points: just after delivery; between three and seven
months after their baby's birth; and between seven months and one year.
Of those who shared a bed with their infant at three to seven months, 75 percent
continued to do so at seven months to one year.
"Because it is so common, this is something we really need to learn more about,"
says Ruth Brenner, lead author of the study and a pediatrician and epidemiologist
at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
In the first study, Willinger and her colleagues based their findings on a telephone
survey of 8,453 parents and other nighttime caregivers in the United States. The
annual survey was first conducted in 1992.
This survey also found that black women were the most likely to share their bed
with a baby. About 31.3 percent of black mothers shared a bed with their infant
in 2000, up from 21.6 percent in 1993-94, the first year the data were available
for use in comparison.
While it sounds like a large increase, the uptick is not statistically significant,
Willinger says. Nor was a slight dip for Hispanic women statistically significant:
About 15.2 percent of Hispanic women practiced bed-sharing in 1993-94, while only
13.2 percent did in 2000.
However, Willinger and her colleagues did find meaningful increases in bed-sharing
among white mothers and Asians. About 32.1 percent of Asian mothers reported they
usually shared a bed with their infant, up from 11.5 percent.
And 9.6 percent of whites shared a bed with an infant, up from 4 percent in 1993-94.
The survey also found that mothers less than 18 years old were 2.5 times more likely
to have their infant sleep with them. And parents in households making less than
$20,000 a year were 1.5 times more likely to share beds with their children.
Researchers aren't sure the reason for the increase, although it coincides with
an increase in breast-feeding and reports that sharing a bed with baby facilitates
nursing. The media, notably the "baby press," have also helped promote the views
of bed-sharing advocates, Willinger says.
The American Academy of Pediatrics warns that bed-sharing "may be hazardous under
certain conditions," and recommends that parents may want to consider alternatives,
such has placing a crib next to the parents' bed.
But McKenna, who has published more than 20 papers on the issue during more than
30 years of research, says Western culture has defined the issue in terms of the
dangers while neglecting thousands of years of evolution and experience.
Yes, babies could get trapped by furniture near the bed, so parents should make
sure this isn't a possibility. And yes, parents who are drunk or taking drugs could
roll over and smother a child, so they should abstain if they share a bed with an
infant.
"Just like we've learned there are safe and unsafe ways of putting babies in cribs,
we have learned there are safe and unsafe ways of sleeping with babies in bed,"
McKenna says. "A mother sleeping with her baby is absolutely, inherently protective.""