Baby Parenting Guide

How does having your baby sleep in your room decrease the risk of SIDS?

When babies die of SIDS, they simply die in their sleep. How does having your baby in your room decrease this risk? I'm sure parents are asleep too, so how would they know their baby's died/dying? I fortunately have no experience of this, my heart goes out to any parent who has.

Public Response to How does having your baby sleep in your room decrease the risk of SIDS?

1. If you're co sleeping your bodies movement of breathing can actually remind your child to breathe, so they say. I've had three friends to lose a child from SIDS, it's absolutely heart breaking.
2. I don't think it can neccessarily decrease the risk. It seems to be unpreventable. My mom used to say that when I was a baby, she could always hear my breathing. She said that one night she was laying down and she couldn't hear me so she went to check on me and I had rolled over with a blanket over me and was suffocating. (of course she helped me!) So maybe having the baby sleep in your room gives you a better chance to call 911 if you hear the breathing stop.
3. From what I understand, they baby starts mimicking the breathing of the mother, and therefore sets her own rhythm. Some people feel some sids cases are because the baby is not used to it, so they forget to breathe.
4. I'm not so sure that it decreases the risk. I think it may just ease our minds knowing that the baby is in the same room as us. Laying the baby on their backs to sleep is the most talked about way to prevent SIDS, never smoking around the baby is supposed to help and studies are now saying that pacifiers are helpful in preventing sids.
5. There are many theories (and no Jen, nobody is saying that it 100% eliminates the risk -- just that it reduces it), including that the proximity of the parents keep baby from sleeping too deeply, (babies who sleep in mama's room/bed tend to eat at night for longer periods), that baby can feel/sense the parent's breathing, that the carbon dioxide triggers baby's instinct to breathe -- and many others that don't come to mind at the moment. Just as we still dont' fully understand why back-sleeping reduces the risk, we don't fully understand why co-sleeping/room sharing reduces the risk, but from a statistical viewpoint, it does. It has nothing to do with the parents suddenly noticing that baby has died and leaping up to save him.
6. I'm not sure, from personal experience though, I felt better having the crib right next to my bed as close as possible with my hand in and lightly feeling her breath, the first few weeks I was only half sleep anyway so it made me feel better to be so close to my baby too.
7. Co-sleeping is a bad idea if you are in the same bed as your baby! That's just for starters! Now to answer your question, it reduces the risk of SIDS apparently (though no-one really knows the real cause of it so how they can say that is beyond me) due to the baby being able to hear your breathing. It therefore, teaches them how to breathe in the same way as we do at night when they are asleep so that their brains are still thinking about breathing rather than switching off completely when they sleep.
8. There are studies that show that a baby will mimic his/her mother's breathing and heartbeat. Sleeping in the same room with your infant actually reminds him or her to breath and their heartbeat will regulate to match yours. Also, while there are risks for SIDS that are associated with co-sleeping, there are also benefits such as the above AND with co-sleeping, a mother's body will adjust her temperature to the baby's needs. I.e. if baby is too warm, mom's body temperature will get cooler. There are risks of SIDS either way, and parents have to figure out what is right for them and THEIR child. But if choosing to co-sleep, parents should always follow safety guidelines to a T.
9. Babies find more comfort when they are sleeping close to their parents. But what you should consider is to make their sleeping arrangement as SIDS-proof as possible. Start by getting them a mattress devoid of chemical contents. There are a lot of mattresses today containing materials and chemical ingredients that when inhaled can cause major health problems. Babies will feel suffocated because of that. A firmer mattress is also better. This allows them to make tiny movements without exerting too much pressure on their fragile body parts.