Sharing bed with baby costing over 100 lives, parents warned

A new study found that breastfed babies under the age of three months who sleep in their parents’ beds face a five-fold increased risk of cot death.

Researchers estimate that 40 per cent of the 300 cot death cases which occur in the UK each year could be prevented if parents only brought children into their beds for comfort and feeding, but not sleeping.

At present, NHS officials only advise that parents should not bed share if they have been drinking alcohol, taking drugs or if they smoke.

But the authors of the latest study said that the guidance should be expanded to dissuade all bed sharing, especially with babies under three months.

The research, led by researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, examined data from five studies on cot death, also known as sudden infant death syndrome.

The authors examined the records of 1,472 cot death cases and 4,679 control cases.

They found that the risk of cot death among breastfed babies under three months increased with bed sharing, even when the parents did not smoke and the mother had not consumed alcohol or drugs. Babies who slept in their parents’ beds had a five-fold increase of cot death compared to children who slept in a cot in the parents’ room.

The research, published in the BMJ Open, found that 22 per cent of the cot death cases occurred when babies were sharing a bed with their parents. The authors estimate that 88 per cent of such cot death cases would not have happened if bed sharing had been avoided.

The risk associated with bed sharing decreases as babies get older but if either parent was a smoker or the mother had drunk alcohol or used illegal drugs at any time since the child was born, the risk was greatly increased.

“Currently in the UK more than half of cot deaths occur while a baby is sleeping in the same bed as its parents,” said lead author of the study Professor Bob Carpenter from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Francine Bates, chief executive of The Lullaby Trust, a charity which promotes safe sleeping in babies, said: “We would also urge every new mother and father to weigh up the known risks of sharing a bed with their baby and, in light of their own situation, take appropriate precautions.

“Our core message remains that the safest place for a baby to sleep for the first six months is in a crib or cot in the same room as a parent or carer.”