# What's the Likelihood of Suffocating a Child Sleeping in your Bed **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [July 18, 2014, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-likelihood-of-suffocating-a-child-sleeping-in-your-bed/693421 "2014-07-18T02:24:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![qazwart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/5fc32e/32.png) [@qazwart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qazwart)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-likelihood-of-suffocating-a-child-sleeping-in-your-bed/693421/1 "2014-07-18T02:24:48Z")
In the column [What’s the Likelihood of Suffocating a Child Sleeping in your Bed](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1231/whats-the-likelihood-of-suffocating-a-child-sleeping-in-your-bed), Cecil poo-pooed the idea it was dangerous: > [@](#): > > [After the story of King Solomon and the baby…] Come on, you say, it’s the Bible. Since when do we accept the Bible as gospel? > > I rest my case. A [recent news article](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-50835/Baby-suffocated-sleeping-parents.html) in the Daily Mail has just reported a case in Great Britain. According to an article in [Pediactrics](http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2014/07/09/peds.2014-0401.full.pdf+html), accidental suffocation is a leading cause of infant deaths. According to the conclusions: > [@](#): > > Risk factors for sleep-related infant deaths may be different for different age groups. The predominant risk factor for younger infants is bed-sharing, The American Pediatrics Association recommends against bed sharing with young infants. The likelihood may be rare, but it shouldn’t be summarily dismissed as merely some sort of biblical tale. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-likelihood-of-suffocating-a-child-sleeping-in-your-bed/693421/2 "2014-07-18T02:52:13Z")
Indeed, in 70 percent of the roughly 8000 SIDS deaths that were analyzed in the [study](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/14/bed-sharing-risks_n_5578744.html) you cite, the infants were co-sleeping. Honestly, I think Cecil’s answer needs revisited. ---
**Author:** ![sbunny8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@sbunny8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbunny8)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-likelihood-of-suffocating-a-child-sleeping-in-your-bed/693421/3 "2014-07-18T03:19:13Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > Honestly, I think Cecil’s answer needs revisited. I agree. Once again, he completely failed to answer the question. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-likelihood-of-suffocating-a-child-sleeping-in-your-bed/693421/4 "2014-07-18T05:13:29Z")
Got to love it when people dismiss a legitimate question rather than addressing it. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-likelihood-of-suffocating-a-child-sleeping-in-your-bed/693421/5 "2014-07-18T11:41:41Z")
From time to time, Cecil gets into one of those moods and just used “filler” because of a good joke. (Note that this wasn’t a full column, too short.) He was in such a mood this week, as well: [How many sponges do I need so I can soak up the Pacific Ocean and walk to Hawaii? - The Straight Dope](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3171/how-many-sponges-do-i-need-so-i-can-soak-up-the-pacific-ocean-and-walk-to-hawaii) As a serious question, however, I’ll bring this to his attention and see if he’d like to address the question straight. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-likelihood-of-suffocating-a-child-sleeping-in-your-bed/693421/6 "2014-07-18T16:12:07Z")
I was being a bit humorless, I suppose. The column just popped up so serendipitously with the news of the study. ---
**Author:** ![sbunny8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@sbunny8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbunny8)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2014, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-likelihood-of-suffocating-a-child-sleeping-in-your-bed/693421/7 "2014-07-19T17:16:22Z")
> [@](#): > > Then came there two women, that were harlots, unto the king [Solomon], and stood before him. And the one woman said, O my lord, I and this woman dwell in one house; and I was delivered of a child with her in the house. > > And it came to pass the third day after that I was delivered, that this woman was delivered also: and we were together; there was no stranger with us in the house, save we two in the house. > > And this woman’s child died in the night, because she overlaid it. And she arose at midnight, and took my son from beside me, while thine handmaid slept, and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom. > > And when I rose in the morning to give my child suck, behold, it was dead: but when I had considered it in the morning, behold, it was not my son, which I did bear (1 Kings 3:16-21). I feel like someone should point out that this doesn’t even rise to the level of “biblical tale” because the book in question doesn’t actually tell how the baby died. It only tells us what the woman said. The story goes that a woman told King Solomon that her roommate’s baby was dead and she (the plaintiff) **inferred** that it died from being smothered accidentally. According to her own testimony, she did not witness the event. Even if we assume that the woman wasn’t fictional, or lying, it’s quite possible that the baby died some other way and the woman merely ASSUMED that it was smothered accidentally. However, the existence of the story itself is evidence that the person who recorded the story found it to be a plausible explanation, from which we can infer that the fear of accidentally smothering an infant is not a recent invention. ---
**Author:** ![kozureokami](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dec6dc/32.png) [@kozureokami](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kozureokami)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2014, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-likelihood-of-suffocating-a-child-sleeping-in-your-bed/693421/8 "2014-07-20T00:03:01Z")
Human beings evolved under conditions of mother-infant bedsharing. What is not being considered here are the benefits of bedsharing in infancy, which are many, including facilitation of breast-feeding and infant nervous system development through coordinated infant-mother sleep/arousal patterns. Indeed, parent-infant bedsharing can help prevent SIDS events. There is a large medical literature on this. Death due to overlaying and bedsharing-related SIDS events happen under specific, predictable conditions–namely parent obesity, parent substance abuse, and parent smoking. Remove these variables and infant-parent bedsharing is not only safe, but beneficial. Remove these variables and it is the practice of putting infants in cribs in their own room that becomes the more dangerous practice. ---
**Author:** ![Powers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Powers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Powers)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-likelihood-of-suffocating-a-child-sleeping-in-your-bed/693421/9 "2014-07-22T01:27:46Z")
> [@kozureokami](#): > > Human beings evolved under conditions of mother-infant bedsharing. Yes, but only for the most basic definition of “bed”. Certainly not with innerspring mattresses, memory foam, and waterbeds. Powers &8^] ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-likelihood-of-suffocating-a-child-sleeping-in-your-bed/693421/10 "2014-07-22T02:57:28Z")
> [@kozureokami](#): > > Human beings evolved under conditions of mother-infant bedsharing. What is not being considered here are the benefits of bedsharing in infancy, which are many, including facilitation of breast-feeding and infant nervous system development through coordinated infant-mother sleep/arousal patterns. Indeed, parent-infant bedsharing can help prevent SIDS events. There is a large medical literature on this. Death due to overlaying and bedsharing-related SIDS events happen under specific, predictable conditions–namely parent obesity, parent substance abuse, and parent smoking. Remove these variables and infant-parent bedsharing is not only safe, but beneficial. Remove these variables and it is the practice of putting infants in cribs in their own room that becomes the more dangerous practice. I’d be interested in reading this large medical literature. Can you provide links? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-likelihood-of-suffocating-a-child-sleeping-in-your-bed/693421/11 "2014-07-22T15:54:23Z")
[QUOTE=kozureokami] Death due to overlaying and bedsharing-related SIDS events happen under specific, predictable conditions–namely parent obesity, parent substance abuse, and parent smoking. Remove these variables and infant-parent bedsharing is not only safe, but beneficial. [/QUOTE] > [@](#): > > Approximately 2,000 babies die from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome each year, and a recent study in the British Medical Journal Open showed that babies who bed-share are five times more likely to die of SIDS, even if the mom is breastfeeding and has not been smoking, drinking or taking illegal drugs. [Cite.](http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/08/04/co-sleeping-and-bed-sharing-is-it-good-idea/) Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-likelihood-of-suffocating-a-child-sleeping-in-your-bed/693421/12 "2014-07-22T16:27:13Z")
Thanks, **Shodan**. I’m not a fan of that article at all, mostly for aesthetic reasons, but it’s a place to start. If I have some time later on today I’ll see if I can dig up the BMJO study and some of the others noted (but not fully cited) in that article. ---
**Author:** ![qazwart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/5fc32e/32.png) [@qazwart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qazwart)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-likelihood-of-suffocating-a-child-sleeping-in-your-bed/693421/13 "2014-07-22T20:43:13Z")
> [@kozureokami](#): > > Death due to overlaying and bedsharing-related SIDS events happen under specific, predictable conditions–namely parent obesity, parent substance abuse, and parent smoking. So, what you’re saying is that SIDS is the parent’s fault for living an impure lifestyle. This strikes me as scientifically sound as the 1940s idea that schizophrenia is the result of weak fathers and over domineering mothers. ---
**Author:** ![kozureokami](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dec6dc/32.png) [@kozureokami](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kozureokami)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-likelihood-of-suffocating-a-child-sleeping-in-your-bed/693421/14 "2014-07-22T20:46:31Z")
The findings on comparative safety of bedsharing vs. solitary sleep, as well as general benefits of bedsharing are nicely summarized in this article from Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics (full disclosure: I wrote the article): [http://www.thefpr.org/private/pdf/Bedsharing\_fulltext.pdf](http://www.thefpr.org/private/pdf/Bedsharing_fulltext.pdf) Also, the Fox News article posted earlier mentions James McKenna as the “world’s foremost authority” on bedsharing, and he fully supports our findings in the Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics article (Full disclosure: We were going to work on a book together, never happened). The Fox News article also mentions many benefits of bedsharing in addition to describing the negative results from the Open medical journal. BTW, I haven’t seen that article but I seriously doubt that they adequately controlled (or controlled at all) for obesity and the issue of smoking is not confined to actually smoking a cigarette at the time of death by SIDS–it’s more complicated. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2014, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-likelihood-of-suffocating-a-child-sleeping-in-your-bed/693421/15 "2014-07-23T13:52:53Z")
Here’s the [study](http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/5/e002299.abstract?sid=befef1f7-4526-4bbc-8298-6828bb6ced86). They didn’t control for obesity, but they did not confine “smoking” to actually smoking a cigarette at the time of death. Also note that the study is a combination of five SIDS datasets. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2014, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-likelihood-of-suffocating-a-child-sleeping-in-your-bed/693421/16 "2014-07-23T14:03:12Z")
Further - this > [@](#): > > Death due to overlaying and bedsharing-related SIDS events happen under specific, predictable conditions–namely parent obesity, parent substance abuse, and parent smoking. seems a little over-stated. [This study](http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/107/3/530.short), for instance, that SIDS deaths are more likely if the parent is large, but occurs with parents of normal weight as well. IOW even when the “specific, predictable conditions” of parental obesity, substance abuse, and smoking are not present, bedsharing-relating SIDS events do occur. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2014, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-likelihood-of-suffocating-a-child-sleeping-in-your-bed/693421/17 "2014-07-23T14:29:00Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Here’s the [study](http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/5/e002299.abstract?sid=befef1f7-4526-4bbc-8298-6828bb6ced86). Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![kozureokami](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dec6dc/32.png) [@kozureokami](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kozureokami)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-likelihood-of-suffocating-a-child-sleeping-in-your-bed/693421/18 "2014-07-26T19:21:00Z")
Of course SIDS deaths may occur in behsharing in the absence of obesity, substance use, smoking, etc. However–statistics that stand alone are meaningless. In order to get a handle on the safety or lack thereof of bedsharing, we need good estimates of deaths due to SIDS, fire, smothering in inappropriate bedding, etc. in the practice of placing infants in solitary sleep situations in cribs in their own rooms. If I recall my own work correctly (and this is not guaranteed), the Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics article uses data to demonstrate that solitary sleep is likely more dangerous than bedsharing if only one of these variables–fire–is considered.