Co-Sleeping Can Kill

What’s up, everybody? It’s your boy ZDoggMD, AKA Dr. Zubin Damania.

OK, because of this recent Rock ‘n Play controversy with the recall of this device that infants are sleeping in, I wanted to talk about how you can keep your baby from dying in their sleep. Sudden infant death syndrome. Many anti vaxxers and others have blamed it on the wrong stuff, like vaccines, etc.

We kind of know how to prevent sudden infant death syndrome. And I’m gonna teach you how to do it right now, okay? So definitely share this video with people you care about.

Okay, first of all, you put your child, your infant to sleep on their back. That’s rule number one from American Academy of Pediatrics. And the reason is, when they’re on their belly, if they’re too young to be able to roll back and forth, they can smother themselves on their face. They don’t have the muscles to turn around, okay? So that’s step one. Now, if they’re old enough already to roll back and forth, you don’t necessarily have to roll them from their stomach back to their back because they can do it themselves.

All right, the second thing is, when you put them in the crib, don’t put a bunch of crap in the crib. All that junk does is present a suffocation risk. They don’t need it. You can swaddle them tight and put them on their back. So crib bumpers and different blankets and little huggy things, it feels right as a parent, but it’s absolutely wrong for keeping your child safe, okay?

The third thing is, please don’t sleep with your child. Now this feels really wrong if you’re in a culture particularly where co-sleeping is a thing. And many cultures are like this. It feels wonderful to be able to share a bed with your newborn. With your infant, child, son or daughter. And I’ll tell you, when I had my kids, I wanted to snuggle them all the time. That is a deadly, deadly decision. Because all it takes is you fall asleep and you roll over on that child.

And if you think it doesn’t happen, you’re wrong. It happens all the time. And the data shows that when parents co-sleep, often, 25% of the time the if the child suffocates, the parent has been drinking or using drugs. A good percentage of the time, the mother was breastfeeding, which is wonderful, and fell asleep, and if they’re in the bed with you, it’s that much harder. You are that much more at risk to do that. It feels right, it’s wrong. Don’t do it, please.

Now, there’s a controversial piece. So now there’s a recommendation that infants sleep in the same room, in a separate crib, as the parents for the first six months. Now, the reason people are recommending that is that there’s some data that shows that it might reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome. And it might promote breastfeeding.

Well that all makes sense, but here’s the downside of that. Other studies show that neither the parents nor the child sleep as well when they’re in the same room. This just makes sense. The second problem with that set up is it tends to promote the sort of random act where you take the child into your bed to maybe calm them and get them to stop crying. And then you fall asleep. Especially if you had a drink earlier that night or something like that, or you’re exhausted like most parents are. And then, tragedy.

So, here are the takeaways. Child, baby, goes to sleep on their back, nothing else in the crib, crib separate from where parents sleep. You can be in the same room or a different room. Eh, mas o meno, but share this with new parents, people you care about, and if you want to go deeper, become a supporter, there’s a little button. We have a little tribe where we talk with the cursey words. I don’t wanna put the cursey words in this ’cause I want you to share it with parents you care about without being nervous about it. All right guys, thank you so much. Hit like, hit share, keep your kids safe. And we out.