An opinion piece in the LA Times promoting co-sleeping between infants and mothers is generating a lot of discussion in the mommy blogosphere.
Entitled It’s OK to sleep next to your infant child. In fact, it’s beneficial was written by Robert and Sarah LeVine, scholars in education and human development. It’s meant to counter the empirical scientific evidence that co-sleeping increases the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). The LeVines don’t dispute the scientific evidence; they offer what they consider conflicting evidence.
[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Asian babies have the lowest risk of SIDS; that’s why Japan’s low rate of SIDS tells us nothing about co-sleeping.[/pullquote]
Specifically:
…In Japan — a large, rich, modern country — parents universally sleep with their infants, yet their infant mortality rate is one of the lowest in the world — 2.8 deaths per 1,000 live births versus 6.2 in the United States — and their rate of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, is roughly half the U.S. rate.
The claim is injudicious at best and deeply disingenuous at worst.
First, the risks of co-sleeping are known to be increased with soft bedding, and parents who are impaired by alcohol or drugs. It’s entirely possible that decreased death rate of co-sleeping in Japan is the result of different bedding or lower incidence of alcohol or drug use among Japanese parents.
Even more important, SIDS has a different incidence among different ethnic groups.
CDC data from the US show that Asian babies have the lowest rate of SIDS in the US, approximately 1/3 the rate of African-American babies and nearly 1/2 the rate of non-Hispanic white babies. Considering that Asian babies have the lowest risk of SIDS; the fact that Japan, which is almost exclusively Asian, has a very low rate of SIDS is only to be expected. Therefore, the low SIDS rate in Japan tells us NOTHING about the risks of co-sleeping.
Why do the LeVines believe it is important to promote co-sleeping — so important that it’s worth misleading mothers with claims about Japan? They think that co-sleeping promotes children’s emotional health:
Christine Gross-Loh writes in her 2013 book, “Parenting Without Borders”: “After years of living [in Japan] on and off, my husband and I (and even our kids) have noticed that most children — the same children who sleep with their parents every night — take care of themselves and their belongings, work out peer conflicts, and show mature social behavior and self-regulation at a young age. Japanese parents expect their kids to be independent by taking care of themselves and being socially responsible. They expect them to help contribute to the household or school community by being capable and self-reliant.”
Their conclusion?
…[T]he proven benefits of mother-infant co-sleeping far outweigh the largely imaginary risks. Putting a baby in a separate room at night encumbers parents and leads to their exhaustion without guaranteeing the safety or future character development of their children.
Really? Japan has an extraordinarily high rate of teen suicide, among the highest in the industrialized world. It’s hard to imagine a more chilling indicator of poor child emotional health than that.
So Japan has high rates of co-sleeping and high rates of teen suicide. Coincidence?
Almost certainly. And that illustrates how drawing conclusions from correlations can be terribly misleading.
Co-sleeping increases the risk of sudden infant death; there’s no question about it and therefore mothers need to know. The increase is not dramatic and some mothers may decide that it is worth the risk for them.
It doesn’t matter what ancient peoples supposedly did in pre-history or what the Japanese do today. To imply otherwise is terribly misleading and chillingly irresponsible.
