AFAIK, the professional advice on co-sleeping is based on studies which shows that babies are at more danger from SIDS and death from other causes such as suffocation when sleeping. So they advise us not to do it.
However it's not as simple as that!
The studies are not a comparison of people sleeping with their babies according to the safety rules as compared to babies in cots.
What the studies counts as co-sleeping includes known dangerous practices such as sleeping with a baby on a sofa in the "co-sleeping" group.
This (US) article probably explains it clearer than I can!
" Does Co-sleeping Lead to SIDS?
Does cosleeping really lead to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)? Are pacifiers really a smart way of preventing SIDS? The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) would like you to think so, releasing this fall what other medical experts have called ?an ill-advised and ill-informed statement? that simply flies in the face of reason.
Recommendations that advise against parent-infant bed-sharing and support the generic use of pacifiers imply a ?truly astounding triumph of ethnocentric assumptions over common sense and medical research,? according to Nancy Wight, M.D., president of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine.
Yet if we review the very same research the AAP used to come to its conclusions, the message is clear: The relative risk of death to infants who sleep in a safe adult bed with a safe parent is not greater than those who sleep next to their parents? beds ? and their risk of death is far smaller than that of infants who sleep in a crib in another room. In fact, for infants over 2 to 3 months of age, the studies show that letting infants sleep in the same bed as their parents in fact protects them from SIDS more effectively than placing them near their bed.
Infants are at risk of suffocation in adult beds, just as they are in cribs. The clear message should be that adult beds need to be made safe, without overly fluffy or heavy bedding, wedging dangers, overheating, siblings (with a very young infant), parents who have consumed drugs or alcohol or parents who smoke. Sofa sleeping is not safe with babies.
Yet the message we get from the AAP is that cosleeping is unsafe ? period. While breastfeeding is shown to reduce SIDS, the AAP does not even mention breastfeeding. Instead, the AAP promotes the use of pacifiers ? an intervention that can impede breastfeeding and that the AAP recommends without appropriate substantiation.
Safe co-sleeping = healthy co-sleeping
Unfortunately, none of the studies cited by the AAP report bother to derive from their statistics a risk ratio for deaths of babies co-sleeping in a family bed with safe, non-smoking, sober parents who take reasonable efforts to reduce wedging and other suffocation dangers. From the available statistics, full numbers can only be guessed at ? but cosleeping in safe conditions is clearly as safe or safer than sleeping in cribs in the same room as parents and far safer than sleeping in cribs in another room. Contradictory to the AAP?s statements, it is clear that limiting safe cosleeping will not reduce SIDS.
How could the facts from these research reports become so confused? It?s important to understand what?s actually meant by the terms used in the research.
The term ?adult bed? usually includes dangerous sofas, sofa chairs, make-shift beds and waterbeds, which account for a large portion of the adult-surface deaths. Also, the term doesn?t necessarily mean cosleeping is occurring, only that an infant is sleeping on that particular surface. An infant sleeping alone on an adult bed is at greater risk than when sleeping there with a parent. Failing to understand these points makes appropriate adult bed-sharing mistakenly sound dangerous.
? Bed-sharing/cosleeping? statistics and comments usually lump together cases of infants sleeping with any adult in any state, including over-exhausted, intoxicated adults, smoking adults, other children and even combinations of these. These comments and statistics also generally include dangerous practices such as sofa-sharing. Another limiting factor of these definitions is that they usually include statistics on infants who coslept at any point during the night of their SIDS-related death ? not necessarily at the time of death. Conscientious parents are scared away from safe cosleeping by such slanted reporting.
SIDS or suffocation?
Notice that most studies define all unexpected infant deaths as SIDS, while a few pose suspected suffocations as distinct from SIDS. The resulting statistics are quite different. While cosleeping may reduce actual SIDS, suffocation risks are greater for bed-sharing (as great as they used to be for crib-sleeping, before safety standards were taught), when appropriate precautions are not taken.
A few studies look for a new risk association with infant death in bed-sharing: the finding that possibly half of those dying while bed-sharing were not accustomed to bed-sharing ? meaning, among other possibilities, that the parents or adults were not experienced in protecting the baby from hazards, that the bed-sharing was impromptu due to overtired or intoxicated parents, or that the baby may have been experiencing extra fussiness for some health reason and was brought to the parental bed for that reason.
What?s behind the figures?
Why do no studies fully compare safe, conscientious cosleeping with other sleep situations? The results would reveal the safety and benefits of the family bed. The numbers in the largest study on cosleeping around the world suggest that safe cosleeping reduces SIDS greatly. Most nations with SIDS rates much lower than the United States regularly practice cosleeping on firm surfaces with low rates of adult smoking. Countries with increased cosleeping frequency also show decreased rates of SIDS.
It?s become obvious in recent years that pharmaceutical companies wield powerful influence over doctors? prescribing habits. Parents who like to read and investigate are well aware of the strong ties between formula companies and pediatricians? advisements.
A few years ago, it became apparent who was behind the curious disinformation campaigns about cosleeping. In May 2002, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) released a weakly supported announcement purporting the dangers of cosleeping.
Interestingly, the announcement was sponsored by the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association (JPMA) ? in other words, the crib industry. The crib industry went further by providing ?Safe Sleep? brochures to Toys ?R Us and other venues, creating a video clip for wide media distribution, and granting continued ?education? on the topic to doctors.
Frightening families away from safe, natural cosleeping sells more than more cribs. Research shows that cosleeping supports breastfeeding. Crib sleeping makes breastfeeding less convenient and more difficult; therefore, enforcing crib sleeping sells more formula. Keep following the progression: increased formula feeding means increased illnesses for babies, which means increased pharmaceutical sales.
Despite the 2002 CPSC statement about cosleeping ?dangers,? the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) continued to support safe cosleeping. But now, with encouragement from SIDS organizations that are backed by pacifier and formula company funding, the AAP seems to have joined the anti-cosleeping bandwagon ? and has begun plugging pacifier use, as well.
The facts speak for themselves
Yet the AAP?s latest announcement is not backed by sound scientific data. Review for yourself the summaries of key points from the largest and most recent studies. A large portion of these come from the AAP?s own journal, Pediatrics. They include all the relevant studies referenced in the AAP?s October 2005 journal announcement or more current reports from the same studies or authors."
The Evidence
The article then goes on to cite and summarise articles published in a range of science / medical journals including the BMJ.
Article lnk here