Health professionals should educate families about risk factors for accidental asphyxiation in shared-sleeping arrangements
Over the past two decades, great advances have been made in identification of hazardous sleeping environments for infants and young children, with significant reductions in numbers of deaths.1 However, one issue that continues to incite heated debate is whether adult caregivers should sleep on the same surface as infants,2 referred to as “shared sleeping”.
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- 2. Byard RW. Is co-sleeping in infancy a desirable or dangerous practice? J Paediatr Child Health 1994; 30: 198-199.
- 3. Blair PS, Fleming PJ, Smith IJ, et al; CESDI SUDI research group. Babies sleeping with parents: case–control study of factors influencing the risk of the sudden infant death syndrome. BMJ 1999; 319: 1457-1462.
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- 5. Byard RW, Elliott J, Vink R. Infant gender, cosleeping and sudden death. J Paediatr Child Health 2011; Nov 3 [Epub ahead of print]. doi: 10.1111/j.1440-1754.2011.02226.x.
- 6. Byard RW. Sudden death in the young. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
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- 8. Bourne AJ, Beal SM, Byard RW. Bed sharing and sudden infant death syndrome [letter]. BMJ 1994; 308: 537-538.
- 9. Byard RW, Burnell RH. Apparent life threatening events, and infant holding practices. Arch Dis Child 1995; 73: 502-504.
- 10. Blair PS, Sidebotham P, Evason-Coombe C, et al. Hazardous cosleeping environments and risk factors amenable to change: case–control study of SIDS in south west England. BMJ 2009; 339: b3666. doi: 10.1136/bmj.b3666.
- 11. Combrinck M, Byard RW. Infant asphyxia, soft mattresses and the “trough” effect. Am J Forensic Med Pathol 2011; Aug 3 [Epub ahead of print].
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