What is safe co-sleeping?
That’s actually the wrong question, according to Mary Ann O’Hara, M.D., M.P.H., clinical assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Washington. O’Hara runs Seattle Breastfeeding Medicine, where she specializes in the medical issues of breastfeeding. She says we should instead ask what constitutes a safe sleep environment. An adult bed need not be an unsafe sleep environment “); //]]>–> — and a crib is not intrinsically safe. “It is very protective to sleep near your baby,” says O’Hara. “Isolating babies for sleep markedly increases the risk of SIDS. In the best studies, with safe furniture, unimpaired parents and babies who are not vulnerable, it doesn’t matter if infants and parents share a bed or not.” Rather, O’Hara worries that the blanket prohibition against bed sharing is sending the wrong message, and that it may even put more babies at risk by forcing parents to keep quiet about bed sharing. Some don’t feel like they can admit they are co-sleeping when it’s co
