Night-feeds on sofa can be 'very, very dangerous' for babies, warn experts

Published on Tuesday 13 October 2009 22:05

MORE than half of babies who die in their sleep are lying alongside a parent.

Researchers have now established a link to the victim's parent having been drinking or taking drugs.

But experts are emphatic that the most dangerous place for a baby is not in bed with a parent, but when the parent chooses to night-feed them on a sofa, and then falls asleep.

Despite a dramatic drop in the rate of such deaths in the UK since the early 1990s, experts are advising parents to avoid communal sleeping arrangements in order to help reduce these deaths even further.

To investigate a possible link between such deaths and socio-economic deprivation, researchers at Bristol and Warwick universities compared these fatalities with a control group at "high risk" – young, socially deprived mothers who smoked – as well as a randomly selected control group.

The parents were interviewed shortly after the death and information was collected on alcohol and drug use.

A detailed investigation of the scene and circumstances of death was also conducted.

Of the 80 deaths analysed, 54 per cent occurred while "co-sleeping".

Lead author Professor Peter Fleming, professor of infant health and development physiology at Bristol University, said: "We have been able to look at the conditions that make sharing a bed or sofa with a parent hazardous.

"People understand the implications of drinking and driving and the vast majority follow that advice.

"So we want parents – if they've had a drink or taken drugs – not to co-sleep with their baby."

Prof Fleming said many parents got up in the middle of the night to feed their baby on a sofa or armchair – believing it was safer than feeding them in bed. However, the opposite was true.

"It is really important that parents should not fall asleep with their baby on a sofa as it is very, very dangerous," he said.

"After parents have fed a baby, it is really important they put them back in their cot."

Writing for bmj.com, Professor Edwin Mitchell, professor of child health research at the University of Auckland, added: "Presumably, alcohol and drugs impair the arousal of the adult co-sleeper.

"However, the dangers of this combination of behaviours are, for the first time, convincingly shown in this study.

"The major disagreement in the bed-sharing debate is whether the advice to avoid bed sharing should apply at all times in the first six months of life, or whether it is acceptable to condone or even encourage bed sharing in the small group that has not been shown to be at increased risk.

"That is, infants of mothers who do not smoke, who are aged three months or more, and whose mothers have not taken alcohol or drugs and do not co-sleep on a sofa.

"Parents have the right to know this information, and all health professionals should advise parents that the safest place for an infant to sleep is in a cot beside the parents' bed in the first six months of life."

Professor Edwin Mitchell said:

"Implementing what we already know has the potential to eliminate sudden infant death syndrome."