News

10th May 2005

Babies at risk because parents lack safe sleeping knowledge

The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths (FSID) has launched a new campaign for Baby Safety Week (9-15 May 2005) to highlight the importance of roomsharing and the dangers of bedsharing.

A new opinion poll commisioned by the Foundation has shown that parents are confused on safe sleeping practices for their baby.

The Foundation recommends that the safest place for your baby to sleep is in a cot in your room for the first six months.

However, the poll found that one in six babies are being put at risk of cot death because their parents are smokers and share a bed with their baby - a practice which increases the risk of cot death considerably.

While most parents knew it was not safe for a baby to bedshare with parents who smoke in bed, 22 per cent thought it was okay for the baby to share a bed as long as the smoking parent never smoked in the bed.

The poll interviewed 428 parents with a child under a year old.

A third of parents bedshare with their baby at some point, and the practice is more common in London than anywhere else in the UK.

And 17 per cent of parents mistakenly thought it was safe for a parent to fall asleep with a baby on a sofa or armchair. In fact, this increases the risk of cot death fifty times compared with sleeping a baby in a cot in the parents' room

Joyce Epstein, FSID's director said: "The results of this poll are worrying. With seven babies dying as cot deaths every week and the high proportion happening when sharing a bed - especially when parents are smokers - we must not be complacent.

"The safest place for a baby to sleep is in a cot in the parents' room for the first six months.

"It is risky to bedshare with a baby if either parent is a smoker, has been drinking, takes drugs or medication that makes them drowsy, or is excessively tired.

"Our new posters and advice cards clarify the lifesaving messages on roomsharing and bedsharing. Parents and health professionals are invited to call FSID's Helpline on 0870 787 0554 for free advice cards, and professionals are urged to order posters for display."

Claire Jolly, health visitor and cot death parent said: "It's fine to breast feed your baby in bed but if you smoke at all - even if not in the bedroom - you really must protect your baby and put them in their cot to sleep.

"These new resources will help health professionals get the advice across in a clear, accessible and friendly way".

In January 2004, the UK's largest ever cot death study (CESDI) showed that 25 per cent of cot deaths occurred in the adult bed.

The European study of smoking and bed-sharing finds that if a two-week old baby shared a bed with a mother who is a smoker, the risk of the baby dying is 27 times higher than if the baby's parents are not smokers and the baby sleeps in a separate cot.

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