Share a room with your baby

One day in January, I was driving home from my parents’ house in that contented state of piloting a familiar route with light traffic. But a billboard on Oklahoma Avenue near the U.S. Post Office jolted me into annoyance.

The image replaced the headboard on an adult bed with a tombstone inscribed “FOR TOO MANY BABIES LAST YEAR, THIS WAS THEIR FINAL RESTING PLACE.” Below that was the statement, “The safest place is in a crib. City of Milwaukee Health Department milwaukee.gov/safesleep.” The image remains available at that website, but the Oklahoma Avenue billboard is no longer on display.

This dramatic billboard was part of the Milwaukee Health Department’s campaign launched Dec. 28, 2009 to minimize infant deaths. I imagine that many parents and parents-to-be, plus the family members and friends advising them, saw the billboard and formed opinions about how babies should sleep. Of course, these groups are very concerned about preventing sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Every reasonable parent thinks about it during the early months of parenthood.

The city’s dramatic, straightforward message drew criticism from James McKenna of the Mother-Child Behavioral Sleep Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame and everyday parents. Lots of parents called during the topic’s discussion on the Joy Cardin radio show Jan. 26 on WPR. Some parents felt this campaign makes women feel worse about themselves, and incites guilt about a natural decision.

Among my circle of friends, I know several who have regularly shared their adult bed with a newborn. I’d say it’s so common as to be rampant. Some chose this path and others fell into it as a response to their child’s late-night waking.

While my husband and I didn’t share our bed with our newborn (known as bed-sharing), we did keep her bassinet in the room with us (known as room-sharing) for the first few weeks. I can understand the line of thinking that both bed-sharing and room-sharing are natural decisions. “Natural” in the sense of how families must have slept for thousands of years. “Natural” in the sense of how parents who research holistic topics often choose to keep their babies close, and purchase equipment to help make it safe. “Natural” in the sense of exhausted parents needing their own sleep and taking what seems to be the path of least resistance. (I remember falling asleep in a glider chair, our typical breastfeeding spot, when an illuminated billboard pasted on the nursery wall couldn’t have fended off my exhaustion.)

I was prepared to rail against the city’s campaign until I reviewed all the materials in preparation for this column. To my surprise, I found a second layer of the city’s message to be on target in its support of room-sharing. While the health department is shouting “No bed sharing!” with the billboards, it is whispering “Room sharing is good” in some circumstances. There’s no mention of room-sharing in a recent Milwaukee Courier article by Anna C. Benton, director of Family and Community Health Services for the Milwaukee Health Department, but she advocates the practice in a Journal Sentinel article.

Scroll down the milwaukee.gov/safesleep site and you’re advised to “Provide a separate but nearby sleeping environment, meaning: babies should share a room with their parents, but not a bed. The risk of SIDS is reduced when the infant sleeps in the same room as the mother.” I think that many people who saw only the billboard and not the website never heard this important aspect about reducing SIDS.

The health department should better promote this pro-room-sharing detail, and information about ways to safely share a bedroom. For years, it’s been a part of nationwide SIDS reduction efforts like the Back to Sleep campaign.

Unfortunately, the point probably won’t become a dramatic billboard, and many parents will never hear the message. Lots of them will keep bringing their infants into adult beds without information about how to make it safer.

The author is a freelance writer and mother of one. Reach her with comments or suggestions at jill@bayviewcompass.com

The Cribs for Kids program provides Milwaukee families with portable cribs to help reduce deaths due to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and unsafe sleep. Community professionals, such as a case worker or nurse, may refer families to the Milwaukee Cribs for Kids program by calling (414) 286-8620.