Children who share a bed with their parents may be as much as five times more likely to die of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), according to a new study from researchers at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
For the study, lead researcher Robert Carpenter and his colleagues reviewed five major studies of SIDS, including 1,472 deaths. They also reviewed 4,679 controls in the study. They found that 22 percent of the children who died of SIDS were reportedly sleeping in the same bed as their parents at the time of death.
"Our findings suggest that professionals and the literature should take a more definite stand against bed-sharing, especially for babies under 3 months," the researchers wrote in their study report.
"The message is clear, but it is one the bed-sharing advocates don't want to hear," Carpenter adds. "For the first 3 months of life, babies should not sleep with their parents. Period. After that, if the parents don't smoke, it might be OK."
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