Sleeping with his infant in his arms the biggest mistake of his life

“Co-sleeping killed my baby.” Read the unfortunate story of a dad whose baby died in his arms. Learn about it and the dangers of co-sleeping here.

What can you read in this article?

• The story of a baby who died due to co-sleeping with his parents
• How co-sleeping affect your child’s development
• The pros and cons of co-sleeping

When I was a new mom, I was so scared of holding my fragile newborn. I was so anxious about squishing her that despite other people’s advice that it was okay to sleep next to her, I insisted on putting my baby on a crib beside our bed.

For the first few days home with our baby, I hardly got any sleep, because I was always up checking in on her, if she was still breathing.

My mother-in-law visited the next week, and she told me to get used to sleeping beside my baby. She said that it would make my life easier since I was breastfeeding.

To prove her point, she even slept on our bed beside our baby that night. I felt challenged and my maternal instinct kicked in that I decided I would give co-sleeping a try.

Nine years and three babies later, I’ve learned to sleep on the same bed with my children. It really did make my life easier because as the baby grew older, they learned not to disturb me when I sleep and just breastfeed with minimum assistance.

But not a day or a night went by that I didn’t have to check if my baby was okay. There were nights that I worried if the baby fell off the bed or if she was accidentally smothered with a pillow.

Despite me and my kids coming out of it unscathed, I acknowledge that co-sleeping with a baby, especially a newborn is dangerous and shouldn’t be recommended.

Because while some parents and babies came out of it “okay,” there have been cases where unfortunate incidents happened because of it. Take the case of this story that was reported on BBC in 2015.

Co-sleeping killed my baby

Darcie-Rose Souster was only 11 months old when she died in a heartbreaking accident that could have been prevented, and now doctors are using her incident to educate parents on this very common mistake.

According to the report, she died at Northampton General Hospital. Her father, Justin Souster, claimed he awoke around in bed to find his daughter “floppy” and unresponsive.

“When I woke up I found my arm had gone numb,” he said. “It was about 5 a.m.. I moved my arm and found Darcie-Rose had flopped back and she wasn’t breathing.”

While the family waited for the ambulance to arrive, Darcie’s mother tried to resuscitate her daughter in vain. They rushed the infant to the hospital within ten minutes, but she was pronounced dead on arrival.

Dr. Roger Malcomson, the pediatric pathologist who conducted Darcie’s post-mortem, found unmistakable signs of asphyxia, including blood in her lungs.

There were no suspicious circumstances. However, he said that the way in which the infant had been put to bed with other adults was an unsafe sleeping environment, which had increased the risk of death.

“Given the (baby’s) head was on top of the (father’s) arm, with the neck flexed in that position the cause of death could be given as positional asphyxiation in the context of co-sleeping [emphasis added]” he said in a Mirror report.

Meanwhile, the coroner had this to say:

“Regrettably she was in an unsafe position in her parents’ bed with another little child. I feel it is important to stress that the public should be aware that sleeping with a baby, particularly young children, is unsafe.”

Co-sleeping with baby: the pros and cons

After that, the local police department released a “safe sleep” campaign. The video notes that over 50% of the 4,000 infant deaths each year are due to unsafe sleep environments.

Sids.org states that over the past 20 years in the United States, there has been a decrease in deaths classified as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), and an increase in deaths classified as accidental suffocation.

When it comes to newborn or baby care, co-sleeping has become quite a controversial topic. Because despite the statistics that show that co-sleeping is unsafe, bed-sharing remains the most common sleeping arrangement in a majority of cultures around the world, including the Philippines. Older generations still maintain that it’s the easiest, most convenient sleeping set up with a baby.

To help parents weigh in on whether they should continue practicing co-sleeping or come up with a new sleeping setup in their home, we’ve listed the pros and cons of co-sleeping with an infant.

The benefits of co-sleeping with your baby

• You’ll be able to watch over baby closely.

According to James McKenna, director emeritus of the Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame, when parents and babies sleep in one bed together,  they do sleep more lightly and rouse more often.

Though the thought of waking up multiples times to check on baby might sound undesirable, it is safer, especially in the first few months of life, because it creates more opportunities for caregivers to check on their babies and for babies to recalibrate their breathing to the adult’s breathing.

READ MORE: 

Sharing a room with your kids? Study says it has a negative impact on your kids’ development

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“Can babies choke while sleeping” and other myths about baby sleeping on his back

• Your baby is able to adapt well outside the womb with your help.

Mckenna believes that parents serve as a kind of biological “jumper cable,” or outsourced regulator to a newborn baby when she is completing her gestation outside her mother’s body. So babies sleep together with their mothers, their heart rates, brain waves, sleep states, oxygen levels, temperature, and breathing influence one another, helping them to adapt and thrive in their new environment.

• It supports breastfeeding.

Any breastfeeding mom would agree that getting up four to five times in the night can be physically and mentally exhausting. Co-sleeping helps because then your baby is within arm’s reach and you won’t have to even fully get out of bed. This way, your baby gets what he wants quickly and easily, and you’ll be able to get back to your sleep faster too.

• It’s good for a mom’s mental health.

Related to the previous point, it’s important to note that sleep deprivation also increases the risk of postpartum depression. Research suggests that if parents are able to get back to sleep quickly, they will be well-rested, make better decisions, and more importantly, have better emotion regulation.

The dangers of co-sleeping with your baby

• It increases the risk of sudden infant death syndrome.

A previous study by the National Centre for the Review and Prevention of Child Deaths in America looked into more than 8,000 unexplained deaths of babies and discovered that 74 percent of the children that died were bed-sharing. It also increases the possibility of your infant overheating, which is another cause of SIDS. It’s very important to note that the risk is higher if your baby was born premature.

• Other accidents

Co-sleeping with your baby also increases the risk that your child might be smothered by another adult, a bigger kid, or other items in the bed such as pillows and blankets. There’s also the risk of your child falling off the bed.

• If there is another child in the room, his sleep will be affected too

It can be really difficult having two children on one bed. Your older child might accidentally roll on her younger brother while sleeping. Or, when the newborn wakes up, it’s highly likely that the other child will wake up too.

• Toe tourniquet

A previous article reported that a single strand of hair almost cost a baby his toe. It’s because of toe tourniquet,” a situation where a strand of hair becomes wrapped around a finger or toe and can get tighter and tighter as the baby wriggles – eventually cutting off the blood supply. Scary, right?If you and your baby sleep on the same bed, the possibility of his tiny toe or finger getting tangled on your hair increases.

• It can disrupt their sleep patterns or create sleep problems later on in life

Another study revealed that the later a child co-sleeps, the worse their sleep habits are later on in life. According to the research done by the  Norwegian Institute of Public Health, chronic sleep problems were found to be more common in babies that had co-slept.

Safe sleeping guidelines

The American Academy of Pediatrics maintains that bed-sharing should not be practiced, especially for babies one-year-old and below.

According to their publication, there is evidence that sleeping in the parents’ room but on a separate surface decreases the risk of SIDS by as much as 50 percent. Moreover, this sleeping arrangement is most likely to prevent suffocation, strangulation, and entrapment that may occur when the baby is sleeping in the adult bed.

In a related article, the authors discussed the different sleeping guidelines that the AAP has established since 2016. When it comes to co-sleeping, here’s what the medical experts have to say:

• Room sharing is advised.

According to AAP, putting your baby in the same room as yours during his first year helps reduce the risk of SIDS as much by 50 percent.

Place his baby’s crib, bassinet, portable crib, or play yard in your bedroom, close to your bed where you can go to him easily. Room sharing will also make it easier for you to feed, comfort, and watch your baby at all times.

• However, bed-sharing is not recommended.

Sharing a bed with your infant increases the possibility of SIDS, suffocation, and strangulation. Moreover, certain factors make bed-sharing even more dangerous. Never share a bed with your baby if

• • He is younger than 4 months old.
  • When he was born prematurely or with low birth weight.
  • He suffers from secondhand smoke (you or any other person in the bed is a smoker, even if you do not smoke in bed).
  • The mother smoked during pregnancy
  • You are taking medicines or drugs that might affect your consciousness and make it harder for you to wake up.
  • When you consumed alcoholic drinks.
  • You are not the baby’s parent.
  • When your bed’s mattress or surface is soft, like a waterbed, old mattress, sofa, couch, or armchair.
  • You couldn’t do without soft beddings like pillows on the bed.

• If you would bring your baby into your bed, it would just be to feed or comfort.

After breastfeeding or playing with your baby, put him back in his own sleep space when you are ready to go to sleep. If there is any possibility that you might fall asleep, make sure there are no pillows, sheets, blankets, or any other items that could cover his face, head, and neck, or overheat your baby.

Also, refrain from putting him on your chest if you have any thoughts of sleeping or closing your eyes. As soon as you wake up, be sure to move the baby back to his own bed.

Additional information by Camille Eusebio

Source:

AAP, Greater Good Berkeley, The Sleep Judge