…the magazine that is.

In the July 2007 issue of a certain magazine aimed at people with children there was an article that was worthy of an email to the editor. This article talked about protecting infants from various dangers such as falls, burns, poisoning, choking and suffocation. A worthwhile article that unfortunately contained some very bad information; read on and I’ll explain.

Upon broaching the topic of suffocation, the article plainly stated don’t sleep with your infant. “We just don’t know how to do it safely”, the expert Dr. was quoted as saying. How is it possible that we don’t know how to sleep with our infants? Did we somehow unlearn this as time progressed and houses got bigger? Is it something that the western culture doesn’t know how to do because in most Asian countries today you find it the norm for mothers to sleep with their infants without it leading to large numbers of fatalities. If they can do it safely that must mean that it can be done…right?

But, instead of going on to explain how to sleep with your infant safely this portion of the article only went as far as recommending that you place a crib or bassinet bedside if you want to be close to your infant. Well, that’s not good enough. If you’re going to tell someone that they don’t know how to do something safely I would think that you would want to follow that up by providing safety guidelines. So I felt the need to write to the editor and tell them just that.

It’s a fact that at one time or another most infants will be brought into their parents bed and because of this parents need to know how to safeguard it. If you would like more information on sleeping safely with your baby I recommend the reprinted Cosleeping issue of Mothering magazine found here (last selection on bottom of page).