Dr. William Sears, a California pediatrician, child care author and central figure in the attachment parenting movement, believes sharing a bed fosters healthy bonding between parents and infants, and that the practice reduces the incidence of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Co-sleeping is the style of the '90s. But he said the study does warn of the dangers parents must heed. It found that water beds, in particular, are dangerous, since a prone baby face down on the impermeable surface could suffocate. Sears said some parents remove headboards or put mattresses on the floor.
Many more infants die alone in their cribs at night than die in their parents' beds.
Pediatricians at the AMA conference yesterday said they knew of no evidence suggesting babies who sleep with parents are less likely to die of SIDS, and Sears acknowledged there is no scientific evidence to support the notion that the sound of the mother's breathing and heartbeat keeps the baby breathing. The study intensifies an already heated debate, in which parents and pediatricians express fervently held and rarely changed beliefs on where children should sleep. Several mothers interviewed said they're aware of their babies even during sleep, and complained that the study didn't distinguish between deaths caused by mothers, fathers, grandparents or others sleeping with the infants. Seventy-nine of the deaths occurred on waterbeds. Nakamura said babies should sleep in cribs that meet federal safety standards, and that deaths have occurred in cribs that are broken, with missing spindles, for instance, or too old to meet the standards.