Risks of SIDS Five Times Higher when Infants Share Bed with Parents

Co-sleeping with parents increases a newborn's risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) by five times, a new study says.

The high risk associated with sharing a bed with parents remained the same even after the babies were not exposed to tobacco, alcohol or drugs while in the mother's womb or after birth.

SIDS, also known as crib death, is the sudden death of a healthy baby during sleep. SIDS is one of the leading causes of infant deaths in the U.S., killing about 2,500 babies each year. According to experts from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), parents should keep their babies in a separate crib in their room, and should never share the bed with their infants.

To analyze the risk of co-sleeping, professor Bob Carpenter of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and colleagues collected data from previous studies carried out in Europe, Australia and the U.K. The data provided details about 1,472 cases of SIDS and information about 4,679 controls, part of the studies.

A closer look at the data revealed a significant number of SIDS cases (22.2 percent) occurring while the babies were sleeping in the same bed as their parents. According to the authors, 88 percent of SIDS deaths could have been avoided if the baby was kept separately in a cot in the parents' room. However, the study also found that the risks of bed-sharing goes down as the babies grow older.

"Parents need to know the risks from bed sharing, especially for babies under three months," one of the study authors professor Ed Mitchell, from The University of Auckland, said in a university news release. "Health professionals have a duty to inform them. Innovative strategies such as the wahakura and pepi-pod provide alternatives to bed sharing, and are attracting interest overseas."

The findings of the study have been published in BMJ Open.

Parents are always advised to avoid co-sleeping to avoid many health risks for their babies - including SIDS, suffocation and strangulation. Apart from these, previous studies have shown other hidden risks associated with co-sleeping. A study published in Pediatrics in July 2012 found that sharing the same bed brings down oxygen levels in the baby's body - a condition known as Hypoxemia (also called oxygen desaturation) - and exposes him/her to many health problems. Another study presented at the American Public Health Association's annual meeting last year found that avoiding breast-feeding and co-sleeping increases the mother's stress levels.