One article suggests a possible link between persistent bedsharing and worse mental health outcomes for children. Does it really say that? What does this data tell us and should parents be concerned? (Hint: no concern needed.)
An analysis of new research that aimed to assess the effects of typical sleeping arrangements and deviations from these arrangements on the physiological arousal of infants during sleep.
Many families will end up bedsharing at some point without having properly prepared for it. Whatever your plans are, take a moment to review your bed and your situation to ensure that bedsharing is as safe as possible if or when it comes to it.
It is a common refrain that parents of premature infants should never bedshare. Yet this is not always actively followed given the difficulties of caring for a premature baby who requires regular skin-to-skin contact. This article reviews the research surrounding this with some areas for discussion moving forward.
Of late, bedsharing has been the central focus of governmental attempts to reduce the rates of SUID or SIDS in many Western cultures. Drs. Bartick and Tomori change the landscape by taking a syndemic approach to looking at these issues and find bedsharing is not the culprit it has been believed to be.
New headlines suggest solitary sleep can improve infant sleep, but digging deeper makes it clear that this suggestion is not only wrong, but potentially dangerous.
The AAP recently suggested that bedsharing should never occur with infants under 4 months of age, leaving many breastfeeding families wondering what they should do for sleep. I look at the evidence for this recommendation to see if it holds up.
The AAP has released their updated Safe Sleep Recommendations so it's time to take a look at what they say and how it applies to families.
Some have suggested that bedsharing and breastfeeding inherently go hand-in-hand. Some suggest it's simply a great tool for breastfeeding families. Two pieces of research attempt to examine this and I take a close look at both to determine what we can take home.
For the majority of human history, we have shared sleep with our infants which has led some researchers to speculate that this is related to the development of secure attachment, but this has yet to be studied... until now. The results may surprise some people.
