A year or two ago a young couple lost their two-month-old son. They had him in bed with them and one of them must have rolled over on him in the night because when they woke up in the morning their beautiful baby boy was dead. A pastor friend of mine and I went over to their house that night. You talk about heartache! The boy’s daddy, a young fella, kept wallowing in the floor saying “God is judging me – God is judging me!” The pastor was trying to show them some scriptures when the mother blurted out: “I just don’t see how there can be a God.”And before you criticize her, you just wait till you wake up beside your dead baby.

I  said “Ma’am my heart goes out to you – I won’t try to say I know what you’re going through because I don’t. But I was reading a story this afternoon about a lady who had lost her baby boy too. She went to her pastor and said “Where was God when my boy died?”

He was stunned by the question like we all would be but he thought for a moment and said “Ma’am, God was in the same place He was when His Son died 2000 years ago.” And I’m telling you there’s a God in heaven that knows what it’s like to lose a baby boy. He knows what it’s like to lose a loved one and He can sympathize with your pain.

On top of that, I believe the grace of God takes care of little children and that baby’s in Heaven right now. And if mama and daddy are Christians – they might have to spend 40, 50, or even 60 years apart from their child and I know that sounds like such a long time. But looking back, 10,000 years from now, it won’t seem like that long at all.

My wife and I were just talking about this a couple of nights ago.  How did the “norm” in our society become babies sleeping away from mothers, alone in their cribs? This thought was triggered by a commercial (for what I can’t recall) where a baby is crying and the wife nudges the husband out of bed to feed the baby. At first glance, this appears normal and slightly comical. However, after actually giving it some thought, I felt a little confused.  How did we get here? When did we start thinking separating a baby, who can’t regulate its own body temperature and breathing rate well and needs to be fed every couple of hours, from its source of food and heat? Coincidentally, the next day, I unintentionally stumbled onto a blog by a renowned pediatrician, Dr. Jay Gordon, M.D., on this very issue.  In his blog, entitled Peaceful Parenting, he defends c0-sleeping of parents and babies and provides some very strong evidence. He states, “Babies sleeping on a safe surface with sober, nonsmoking parents respond to their parents, and the parents respond to them. The chance of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) occurring in this situation is as close to zero as we can measure.” Now, I’m sure there are some out there that are instantly thinking of someone they know or have heard of that co-slept with their baby and mistakenly rolled over on the baby and suffocated it. Although I’ve never known anyone who this has dreadfully happened to, I have heard of a friend of a friend of a friend who has. I think that’s how urban legends get started, right? Well, the fact of the matter is that many more babies have suffocated in cribs than in beds shared with their parents. For more information about this, check out James McKenna’s work at the University of Notre Dame’s Mother-Baby Sleep Laboratory. To wrap this up, Dr. Gordon explains that in his 23 years of practice, the families that do co-sleep are more successful at breastfeeding and the babies have fewer episodes of ear infections, pneumonia, and other illnesses than those families that don’t.

Granted, I am a male with no experience in breastfeeding or the stresses that go along with mothering a baby. I have to gather my information from my wife and patients. However, she and patients alike (despite the difficulties) agree co-sleeping has strengthened the bond between themselves and their babies as well as enhanced their abilities to know what their babies need. Also, being a father of two young boys (co-sleeping with both), I can appreciate the challenges of co-sleeping (especially with my oldest son who flipped and flopped every five minutes).  But, I would not trade that bonding experience for all the hours of sleep I missed because of it.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject.  Please feel free to comment.

In pursuit of health,

Dr. May

De weblog ‘Nieuws Checkers – Leidse studenten controleren de feiten‘ komt met een uitvoerige reactie op het feit dat het Nederlandse Dagblad op 16 oktober jl. een stuk tekst van mij heeft geplaatst op de opiniepagina over de relatie Wiegendood en vaccinaties. Brechtje Zwanenburg is verantwoordelijk voor dit stuk tekst. Alleen de intro al is in hoge mate boeiend te noemen. Ze sluit deze af met de volgende vraag (of is het een retorische vraag?) “Zijn er grenzen aan de vrijheid van meningsuiting?”

Hier ligt een bijzondere vraag voor het voetlicht die mogelijk zelfs Freudiaans geduid kan worden. Voor wie die term niet begrijpt, onder ‘Freudiaans’ wordt verstaan dat men (onbewust) iets prijsgeeft wat men eigenlijk verborgen wil houden. Zijn we in Nederland zover weg gezakt dat we alleen beleidsbevestigende artikelen als ‘toegestaan’ bestempelen? Of bestaat ons landje inmiddels voor het grootste deel uit simpele zielen die elk onderscheidingsvermogen zijn kwijt geraakt en die door de mensen die het ‘weten’ beschermd moeten worden tegen iedere informatie die mogelijk zou kunnen leiden tot onzekerheid en twijfel over de zuivere bedoelingen van de machthebbers? De inspanningen van de Leidse studenten ten spijt maar ik vraag me zeer af of ze werkelijk op zoek zijn naar feiten. Wie bepaald er wat de feiten zijn? Ik zal een praktisch en illustratief voorbeeld noemen.

Sommige mensen blijken spontaan te genezen van kanker. Er is in de wetenschap aardig wat geschreven over dit onderwerp. De officiële definitie van SRK (=Spontane Regressie van Kanker) luidt als volgt (“Spontane regressie van kanker” door Johannes Nicolaas Schilder): “In navolging van Stewart is SRK door Everson en Cole [1956] gedefinieerd als de volledige of gedeeltelijke verdwijning van een maligne neoplasma [=kanker] in de afwezigheid van elke behandeling óf [en nu komt het!] in de aanwezigheid van behandeling die niet geacht kan worden significante invloed te hebben op tumorgroei”. Kijk dit is nou wat ik bedoel. De heren wetenschappers hebben onderling afgesproken wat wel en wat niet ‘geacht wordt significante invloed op tumorgroei te hebben’ en dan heb je de zaak mooi dichtgetimmerd.

De definitie van wiegendood (SIDS) is nog steeds “sudden infant death of unknown origin” [plotselinge kindersterfte met onbekende oorzaak]. Als men de oorzaak dan niet weet hoe kan men dan zo stellig beweren dat het vooral niet door de vaccinaties komt? Prof. Harris L. Coulter heeft in 1985 al samen met Barbara Loe Fisher een boek geschreven onder de titel “DTP, a shot in de dark” waarin hij met wetenschappelijke grondigheid het thema vaccinatieschade aan de orde brengt. Ik heb een Engelstalig artikel van zijn hand over de relatie wiegendood en vaccinaties. Ik heb momenteel geen tijd om het te vertalen maar voor wie het Engels machtig is, is het lezen van dit stukje tekst zeer de moeite waard. Klik op de volgende link: SIDS and Vaccins

Wat mij betreft: wordt vervolgd.

Originally Written by: Scheibner, Viera, Ph.D.

Viera Scheibner is a retired principal research scientist with a doctorate in natural sciences. During her distinguished career, she has published three books and 90 scientific papers in prestigious scientific journals. Since the mid-80’s, she has done extensive research into vaccines and vaccinations. Her first research was in the area of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). She wasn’t even studying vaccinations, but she stumbled onto a relationship between SIDS and vaccinations that lead to a very deep study into vaccination literature in medical journals. In 1983, she published her book on the results of her research Vaccination: The Medical Assault on the Immune System. She often provides expert reports for court cases involving immunizations and vaccine-damaged individuals throughout the world.

SUDDEN INFANT DEATH SYNDROME (SIDS)

In 1985, I was introduced into the world of vaccinations through a breathing monitor invented by my husband, Leif Karlsson, who was a bio-medical engineer specializing in patient monitoring systems. Leif developed a computerized breathing monitor for babies which we called “Cotwatch”, short for ‘watching the cot’. Our monitor gives computer print-outs, and you can monitor for weeks on end, because Cotwatch is a non-touch medical technology. The sensor pad goes under the mattress; nothing is attached to the baby and the baby can roll all over the cot while the breathing is monitored. In 1986, pediatric researchers studying Crib Death Syndrome or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) believed babies were dying because of an inborn fault in the breathing control center in the brain. So they concentrated their studies on breathing. Many parents opted for monitoring their newborn babies’ breathing at home, and we collected feedback from all parents who used our monitor in this research.

OUR FIRST CASE HISTORY This baby was put on our monitor before he was vaccinated, and for more than three weeks, there were hardly any alarms at all. Then suddenly, the mother recorded a whole series of alarms. We thought there was a defect in the monitor, and I sent a different unit, but the alarms continued. After one night when they had six alarms in 24 hours their pediatrician advised them to stop monitoring. But if you have alarms on certain days and no alarms on other days, it is not the equipment malfunctioning; there is good reason for alarms like that. I transferred the baby’s forms onto a graph, but did not understand it at the time. Five years later, I telephoned the mother and asked her when the child was vaccinated. The first injection was given one day before these alarms started. The child hadn’t even recovered before the second injection was given. So there was a high level of stress caused by vaccines even when the child was not dying. There were no alarms before vaccination, and then a series of alarms. The alarms sound to tell you that your child is under stress when their breathing is shallow (hypopneas) or when their breathing ceases temporily (apneas).

We then informed the pediatric and SIDS researchers that the babies were having alarms after vaccinations. We were not critical of vaccines and we didn’t even know about the raging controversy surrounding vaccinations. At this point, the Crib Death Management Center pediatricians stopped sending parents to get our monitor. They didn’t want parents to know that vaccines were stressing their children. Until that time, I was actually pro-vaccination.

SIDS RESEARCH IGNORES THE STRESS ALARMS SIDS researchers call all the alarms which occur when the child is breathing very shallowly, but not dying, ‘false alarms’. Their notion of ‘false alarms’ actually prevents them from having any results. Instead of throwing these alarms into the garbage bin as false alarms we studied them, and did our own research using the computerized breathing monitor, recording the babies’ breathing longitudinally over weeks on end. Overnight six to eight hour studies are often used in SIDS research, but they are very misleading.

COT RESEARCH RESULTS Our computer printouts of babies’ breathing showed non-stop hour by hour recording of the babies’ breathing whenever the child was in the cot. Again, the events are called apneas (pauses in breathing) and hypopneas (a stress-induced shallow, low volume breathing pattern). The graphs all showed increased stress patterns after vaccinations. For instance, after a baby was given his third triple antigen (DPT – diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus) the record of breathing changed and produced peaks in the graph, which indicated increased stress levels.

PATTERN OF FLARE-UPS The graphs showed day by day summaries of events in breathing and the higher the vertical column (or the peak), the higher the stress levels in breathing. There are individual differences, and some children react more than others, but the pattern of flare-ups of stressed breathing follow the same pattern of critical days. The graphs show a number of days where there is no stress level in breathing; then comes day zero when the vaccine was administered. We see the effect of the vaccine within one hour, and the child’s stress level begins to go up and down. In all cases there was a 48 hour reaction after vaccination with a flare-up. Then the stress level went down through the following days until around days five to seven when they had an increased stress level. One child had a reaction on day 7; one on day 5 and 6, so there are individual differences, but the general pattern of these reactions is the same. The stress level again went down; then there was another flare-up at day 16. Of course, we continued to record the babies’ breathing after the sixteenth day. The stress level went down, and there was only a slight increase in the stress level towards the 24th day. These are the critical days. Even the onset of reactions like convulsions occur on these critical days. Even babies whose mothers recorded no fever or crying, had slightly increased stress level, on the same critical days as those babies who had stronger reactions. Two out of ten randomly picked babies had to be admitted to the hospital with serious breathing problems on these critical days.

ALARM PATTERN Our next step was to explain the up and down dynamics of the flare-ups. A Canadian medical doctor, Dr Hans Selye studied the stress response in mammals to any noxious substance or injury of any kind. Selye established that when the animal is exposed to any stressor, it will first elicit an alarm reaction within 48 hours when the body is mobilizing its strength to deal with the insult. Then the body seemingly stops reacting, which he called ‘the stage of resistance’. And then there was another alarm-like reaction, which he called the stage of exhaustion. And I think that you will agree with me, that that is exactly what we see in the breathing of babies after vaccinations. You have the alarm reaction within one to two days, which may be biphasic, then you have the stage of resistance around day 5 to 7, and then you have the stage of exhaustion around day 16.

CONTROLS You can justly say, “Where are your controls?” In our research every child is its own control, because the stress level in breathing is measured before vaccination and after vaccination in each child.

LITERATURE SEARCH ON SIDS Then I asked myself, are we the only people who stumbled over the dangers of vaccines? Does the medical profession know about all this? Is there anything published in the medical literature? I began to do research in medical libraries, and to my absolute astonishment, there is no end to it. For my book, Vaccination, I studied more than 30,000 pages of data published in medical journals about Crib Deaths after vaccinations. In one study, there were 41 babies who died within 21 days of their first Triple Antigen injection, and there was a clustering of these deaths along those critical days we recorded in the babies’ breathing after vaccination. This is the ultimate evidence of the causal link between the administration of those vaccines and these deaths. In the so-called “Tennessee Deaths”, hundreds of babies died there, after their DPT injections. We soon established that the vaccines are killing babies, and Crib Deaths (SIDS) are 95% vaccine deaths.

SHAKEN BABY SYNDROME No doubt, you have heard about the ’shaken baby syndrome’. Only about ten days ago I was in the United States at a court case testifying about shaken baby syndrome. These are often vaccine deaths. This information was published in Nexus, Aug/Sep Issue, 1998 which resulted in cases of shaken baby syndrome being thrown out of court. (You ever seen the documentaries about the people who were  wrongfully put in prison because vaccinations cause the same problems as Shaken Baby Syndrome?)

MEDICAL LITERATURE ON EPIDEMICS DEMONSTRATES THE INEFFECTIVENESS OF VACCINES (The research referred to below is done by pro-vaccination researchers. This is not anti-vaccination literature.)

(a) U.S. EPIDEMICS IN THE VACCINATED POPULATIONS There is not a single study which can demonstrate that when there is an epidemic it only affects the unvaccinated. Quite the contrary, the country that mandates vaccination, the United States, has huge outbreaks of so-called ‘vaccine preventable diseases’ in fully vaccinated populations, and they truly mandate vaccination. Vaccination actually increased the incidence of infectious diseases in the United States.

(b) U.S. INFANT MORTALITY RATES The United States is the most developed country in the world with all kinds of money for medical research and advanced medical technology. How is their infant mortality? Before mass vaccination started (in 1955 with the polio vaccine), United States had the sixth best infant mortality in the world. By 1990, they were on the twentieth place. Only a year later they were on the twenty-fourth place. Today, maybe thirtieth place. And most of these deaths are vaccine deaths. So you can camouflage all sorts of things, but you can’t lie about infant deaths.

(c) In Pediatrics – Supplement, p.939-984, 1988, James D. Cherry et al, reported the side effects of vaccinations in a 40-page report on pertussis immunization. Cherry sits on all committees in the United States that mandate all vaccines that are ever introduced.

(d) JAPAN In 1975, about 37 Crib Sudden Deaths were linked to vaccination in Japan. Doctors in one prefecture boycotted vaccinations, and refused to vaccinate. The Japanese government paid attention and stopped vaccinating children below the age of two years. When immunization was delayed until a child was 24 months of age, Sudden Infant Death cases and claims for vaccine related deaths disappeared. Japan zoomed from a high 17th place in infant mortality rate to the lowest infant mortality rate in the world when they stopped vaccinating. Japan didn’t vaccinate any children below the age of two years between 1975 and 1988, for thirteen years. But then in 1988, Japanese parents were given the choice to start vaccinating anywhere between three months and 48 months. The Ministry study group studied 2,720 SIDS cases occurring between 1980 and 1992 and they established that their very low SIDS rate quadrupled.

(e) AUSTRALIA Health authorities must reveal the vaccination status of children in epidemics. In the last 18 months, 84% of Australian children who got whooping cough were fully vaccinated, and 78% who got measles had record of measles vaccination. So where is the effectiveness of the vaccines?

(f) BRITISH INFANT MORTALITY RATES A British study dealt with infant deaths four weeks after birth. They don’t mention vaccination at all. Between 1975 to 1977 in England, when the vaccination compliance fell to between 10% and 30%, the infant mortality went down. But people have short memories. The vaccination compliance started climbing up after 1977 and so did the infant mortality rate.

(g) In Neurology, 1982, William C. Torch, pediatric neurologist, published “Diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus (DPT) immunization: a potential cause of the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)”. Torch looked at over 200 randomly selected SIDS cases, and in the preliminary data, on the first 70 cases studied, showed that two-thirds had been vaccinated within three weeks of death. He also established that there were ever increasing numbers of deaths with the increasing interval from the injection.

(h) SWEDEN There was a normal worldwide epidemic of whooping cough (pertussis), in which of the Swedish children who got whooping cough, 84% were vaccinated, so the government read the statistics correctly and discontinued whooping cough vaccination. A ten-year follow up of the incidence of whooping cough in the unvaccinated children showed no incidence of whooping cough below the age of six months when the whooping cough is supposed to be dangerous, and actually very little below the age of two years. That is the vulnerable age group. So Swedes achieved, with no vaccination, what the Americans could not achieve with mandatory vaccination.

(i) In the Journal of Infectious Diseases, 1994, “Age Specific Incidence of Bacteriologically Confirmed Pertussis, between 1981 and 1991 – ten year follow-up”. The majority of cases occurred in the most vulnerable age group below the age of one year in the most vaccinated children. Actually the majority of cases happened within the first four months. The vaccine is causing whooping cough. A lot of children develop whooping cough from the vaccine, but if they are vaccinated, it will be diagnosed as ‘croup’.

(j) There was a steady downward trend in the incidence and mortality from whooping cough between 1922 and 1978, and then in 1978, there was a sudden upswing in the incidence. What happened in 1978? You already know. They mandated vaccination. In 1978 a nationwide childhood immunization initiative was begun. Individual states passed legislation requiring proof of immunization for school entry at five and six years of age. The vaccine is causing whooping cough. So where is the benefit? There is no benefit. I see these naive young parents who try to do their level best and they think ” My little baby, I don’t want him to get whooping cough”. Well, don’t look in the direction of the vaccine because the vaccine is not going to stop your child from getting whooping cough. It is going to give your child whooping cough. The only way to stop whooping cough, particularly in small babies, is to stop vaccinating.

INCIDENCE OF DISEASE IN EARLY MONTHS DUE TO MOTHER’S VACCINATIONS There is a high incidence of whooping cough in the first month of life, before children are well and truly vaccinated. These are babies born to mothers who were vaccinated in childhood, and the vaccinated mothers have poor or no transplacentally transmitted immunity, which normally is there to protect small children against any infectious disease for the first one or two years of life. So vaccination is causing whooping cough, and it is pushing the disease into the most vulnerable age group. There is no benefit whatsoever.

For complete scientific references to research discussed in this article, please see Vaccination: 100 Years of Orthodox Research Shows that Vaccines Represent a Medical Assault on the Immune System by Viera Scheibner.

*Reader Discretion* The following post may be disturbing for some viewers, please be advised*

Sometimes, in this world, there are no answers to the hard questions. No explanations for the things that don’t make sense, and no rationale for why bad things happen to good people.

Yesterday morning, at 6:45 am, my EMS crew responded to a home in our neighborhood after we received a 911 call for a “Baby not breathing.” We get calls like this from time to time, usually a febrile seizure or a kid that gagged but was fine once the parent hung up the phone with the dispatcher. We have a fantastic hometown police force that has an average response time of 49 seconds to arrive at an emergency, (no kidding, that really is a true statistic). They got there just before we did, we arrived within three minutes and hurried inside.

Up on the second floor, there was a hysterical woman on the floor, crying and screaming. there was a little boy standing at her side, and he looked healthy and well. The fire chief was trying to help her up. I had no idea why she was freaking out like that. Her son looked fine. The chief looked at me and pointed to a room behind me which I entered with the crew. There was no one in there. It was a baby’s room with a bassinett and baby furniture. A changing table, rocking chair and so one. My heart sank in mt chest as I rushed to the bassinnet to find it empty.

There was only a small spot of blood tinged mucus that looked a few hours old. “Where is the baby???” I called. We rushed into the other room to find the father, a policeman standing over an infant as one of my fellow paramedics picked up the still child. Sadly, the baby was lifeless, stiff, and had the signs of levidity, which meant the baby had been dead for a few hours already. even though there was really nothing that could be done, we took the baby to the ambulance and performed CPR on the way to the nearest hospital. I called ahead and they were waiting for us, and gave a solid attempt as they could. Sadly, the child had already been claimed by its maker, and was already another little angel recalled to heaven.

It was a terribly sad day. The child appeared healthy, well-nourished and well-cared for. The family had a nice home, a healthy 3-year-old, and the fall decorations were still outside. I so wish the call had come over a few hours before so that we might have been able to help.

Like I said, sometimes there are no answers, but I have to trust that God really does have a plan and a purpose for everything. On my way out of the home, I felt a hand on my shoulder. The father gave me a questioning face and made a thumbs up then a thumbs down gesture. I was stupefied and could only shrug, giving him the sorriest face I could, and rushed out after my crew. That moment will haunt me forever. Sometimes the only thing we can do is go through the motions to show the family that we cared about the little guy too, and that we did everything we could to help.

SIDS: Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is the term used to describe the above event. there is no telling who it will happen to, and no known cause. It was the first time in my 15 years of EMS that I have ever had to share in that experience.

The American Dietetic Association (ADA) has updated their position on breastfeeding of infants.  ADA recognizes the various factors that influence women and their families to choose a particular infant feeding method,” the authors write, “but ADA supports and advocates the position that breastfeeding is the optimal feeding method for the infant.

ADA releases updated position paper on breastfeeding.

Poor Job. The biblical person who suffered ever increasing tragedy until nothing was left to him but a bitter wife has come down to us as an example of human suffering and the questions that go along with it.  He lost his wealth, his children and their families, all he owned, and was plagued with disease.  As he sat in an heap of ashes allowing dogs to lick his wounds, his wife’s only counsel was to “curse God and die“.  Obviously, according to her, Job must have done something to bring down the wrath of the Almighty.

When Job’s friends hear about his plight, they mount a support group to be with Job and offer him comfort. Unfortunately, they, too, offer words that are more damning than helpful.  Their miserable efforts at help and comfort end up bringing more suffering to Job instead of relief.  In the end, Job wishes they had never come to “help”.  He would like all of them to just go back home.

We still use Job’s friends as an example for us today. Whenever people offer comfort that ends up being no real comfort at all we call these individuals “Job’s comforters”.  Instead of bringing relief, they bring only more emotional turmoil and suffering along with a sense of guilt that whatever happened was somehow the sufferers’ fault.

Broken Sand Dollar on the Beach, Gleneden Beach, Oregon ©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2009)

I have been to too many funerals and memorial services where well-meaning individuals have turned out to be a “Job’s comforter”. Their badly derived words of wisdom and attempts at comfort only bring greater sorrow and despair.  I cannot number the times that I have wished someone would just shut their mouth.  In fact, I have come to believe that the best thing that can be said by family and friends and well-wishers at a funeral, memorial, or graveside service is nothing!  Simply being present is a gift enough.

I have shuddered as I have heard people say:

• “God must have needed him/her in heaven more than we did.” – to parents after the death of a child
• “Good thing you are still young and can have more kids.” – to a young couple whose baby died of SIDS
• “Now you have even more reason to cherish the children you still have at home.” – to a grieving mom
• “It just wasn’t meant to be.” – to a mom whose baby died shortly after child birth!
• “Remember, God will never give you more than you can handle.”
• “You just keep a stiff upper lip.  You’ll be okay.” – to a grieving widow
• “God must have a lesson for you and your family in all of this.” – after a tragic accidental death
• “God must have known that he/she wouldn’t have been healthy.”
• “God must have known that he/she would have trouble later and needed to go to heaven now.”
• “Try and be strong for the other children.” – to a young teen grieving over the death of his father.
• “He/She is in a better place.” – to a young husband whose wife died of cancer.
• “It will get better/easier with time.” – to a grieving widow.
• “God must have needed another angel in heaven.” – to grieving parents over the death of a young daughter
• “You are so strong.  I know you can handle this.”
• “I know how you feel.”
• “Be grateful for the time you had with him/her.”
• “At least he/she is not suffering any more.”
• “You know that he/she would not have wanted you to feel so sad this way.”
• “Time heals all wounds.  You will be over this someday.”
• “Things will be back to normal before you know it.”
• “Maybe we should have prayed more, then God would have healed him/her.”
• “Remember, ‘all things work together for good’.”
• “Try not to cry so much.  It upsets the kids.”

This is about the time I would like to throw out all of Job’s comforters! It seems to be a human propensity to feel the need to say something unfitting in times of mourning.  Unfortunately, the best that most can come up with is some cheesy spiritual platitude, misplaced Scriptural reference, or miserable attempt to instruct the one grieving.  This is not the time to compare tragedies, instruct in the stages of grieving, or offer spiritual counsel.  It is a time to share in the grieving – to “mourn with those who mourn“.

Mourning with those who mourn is best done by simply being present with the one grieving. This does not require words!  It can involve a loving touch on the arm or shoulder.  It may even involve a tender hug.  For the grieving person, just knowing that there are friends and family present and that they are not alone in their grieving is relief enough.

If words must be used, short statements that identify with the grief of the one mourning is the most appropriate:

• “I am so sorry for your loss.”
• “I do not know what to say right now except that I love you and hurt for you.”
• “My thoughts and prayers are with you.”
• “I sure am going to miss him/her.  I remember when he/she…” – it is okay to share short memories or impressions of the deceased if it is appropriate.
• “I just want to be here for you right now.”
• “My heart aches for your loss.”
• “I cannot imagine what you are going through right now, but I want you to know I am here for you.”
• “It is okay to cry and grieve.  He/she was loved so much and will be missed.”
• “You do not need to say anything right now if you do not want to.  I just want to be with you.”

This does not just apply to the time immediate following a death or tragic loss. It also applies months, even years, later when the fresh wound of grief is opened by a memory.  Such a person’s loss is never fully healed.  The pain of it will always be present.  To avoid becoming a Job’s comforter, one must help the one mourning identify the pain and grieve the loss.  Rather than prolonging grieving, as some may suspect, it actually helps the person heal.  Rather than attempting to suppress the emotions associated with the pain, they are embraced as a part of living.

Rather than become a Job’s comforter, the challenge is to become a true friend who “mourns with those who mourn”. If everyone became better at that perhaps all of Job’s comforters would be thrown out or at least drowned out by the love and kind words of those who are present to comfort those who mourn.

 Isaiah Andrew Phillips  10weeks (24th August – 2nd November 2007)

Two years ago on Friday night 2nd  November we unexpectedly found our second born, Isaiah without breath or life. The end of his short life didn’t make sense to us then and it still doesn’t make sense.

Rebecca and I have been comforted/supported by many brave, sensitive and inspirational family and friends. Thank you to all of you.

We have struggled with our loss and pain and struggled with our God who we still love and trust but truly don’t understand… nor can we understand. I write this now as I hear stories from Samoan families losing loved ones in a surge of water from the ocean they live beside and read a blog telling me one person dies from hunger every second. There are so many ‘why’s’ in God’s inbox and I don’t know what he does with them.

Are You God?

Are You God who made this water? This wave? This sand?

Are You God?

Are You God who made me?

Are You God?

Are You God who started life? These pains… the pleasures?

Are You God?

Are You God who controls seasons? Tells the Winter when to stop?

Are You God?

Do You see?

Do You see the crab with broken claw?

Do You see the bird struggle with one leg?

Do You see me cry for my missing boy?

Do You see?

Is there reason?

Is there reason to change the tide? To set the sun?

Is there reason to burn or drown or dry the land?

Is there reason to know pain, hurt and tired loneliness?

Is there reason?

Where does Your hand end?

Do You tell the sun, the daisy or the wave… Do it again?

Where does Your hand end?

Do You sit and watch, play a move when you want, stay silent, unmoved… seated?

Where does Your hand end?

Where do You begin?

Are You God?

 Copyright Andrew Phillips © 2008

It’s been a crazy few weeks.

We moved out of the place we were house sitting, Luca had his four month immunisations, and we moved in with my parents. Temporarily!

Now I’m not sure which (if any) of these factors caused it, but Luca added to his somewhat skanky current appearance (a disgusting yellowing cradle cap scalp) with a rash that covered his entire face, head and most of his body. He then proceeded to scratch himself silly every waking minute, and while asleep, began to maniacally rock his head from side to side.  To any practiced observer it would’ve been obvious that he was trying to relieve the itching, but to me it looked like he was, in the words of my mother, a few cents short. I spent the next few nights hovering over his bassinet holding his head still, hoping to preserve what brain cells had not already been lost.

What’s all this got to do with Attachment Parenting (which I was supposed to be trialling)? Well, all the head rocking and thoughts of vanishing intelligence (some might question mine) encouraged me to do the one thing AP promotes that I had declared I would never do. I brought Luca into bed with us.

Co-sleeping (or bed sharing) is a big thing in AP and quite a controversial issue. SIDS safe sleeping guidelines don’t recommend it, nor do other subject experts. Tizzie and the other sleep trainers would have a fit over it, and just the thought of it gives me nightmares.

I’ve actually woken at night to find myself shoving my partner across to the other side of the bed, searching through the covers looking for a tiny squashed body.  And he has done likewise. It once took me several minutes to convince him that we hadn’t rolled on Luca and that he was in fact sleeping safely in his basinette in another room. It’s a very freaky feeling.

Needless to say on the night (and there was only one) Luca slept with us, he was the only one who got any sleep. My partner got none because he was constantly being shoved off the bed and I got none because I was constantly shoving him off the bed. In the morning I couldn’t move for a good ten minutes because I’d ’slept’ the whole night with one arm above Luca’s head, to prevent him going under the pillows, and the other hovering in mid-air across his chest, to prevent the doona from going over him.

My body felt like it had aged about fifty years and my brain was mush. Like mother like son.

So to cut a long story slightly shorter, the pram is back, but I’m hanging on to the sling. Some of the principles of Attachment Parenting have worked for me. I like the softer approach. I prefer to pick Luca up and comfort him rather than leave him to cry. I enjoy carrying him close to me when I am out for lunch or doing the shopping and it’s useful when he is having a crappy day and he won’t sleep. But I don’t go in for the whole co-sleeping thing or the really strong emphasis on the mother as sole caregiver. I will pass that kid off to any family member or friend who looks our way, and I think that’s good for him.

And another thing that bothers me about AP is that every website I visit, every book and every piece of promotional material I read shows images of women giving birth at home with their older children watching. Now that is just weird. And creepy. And wrong. And if leaving a baby to cry is going to mess them up, then just imagine what that’s going to do!

We know a few families who have had their newly born bundles of joy suddenly snatched of life.  This poem isn’t about us or anyone imparticular but probably a combination of all.  It is written from an outsider’s perspective looking in.  It is such a devastating situation.  Highly emotional, painful, raw and so awkward for those on the outside to watch all the grief and pain happening. 

Too many Tears

Too many tears from so few eyes

Blue days became their wretched skies

Broken lives in huddled weeping

Bellowed cries make restless sleeping

But how they manage to arise?

Will he depart in death’s demise?

When she breaks down without goodbyes?

Watch love’s torment slowly reaping

Too many tears

Packaged attempts to sympathise

Plainly will not relieve their cries

Compassion knocks with eyes seeping

“Passing by… how are you keeping?

Please carry on but don’t disguise

Too many tears”

Copyright © Andrew Phillips 2009

Well, I am a few days late in mentioning this but figure it’s still most definitely worth mentioning. October 15th was Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. A day created to remember those babies lost from miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, stillbirth, SIDS and any other loss of an infant. A day to help create awareness and spread education. (www.october15th.com) This topic has a special place in my heart because of my own miscarriage and also for all the women I know who have lost a baby. Going through that miscarriage has definitely been one of the hardest things I’ve ever experienced. I wish for no other woman to ever have to go through it. I know I am so blessed now to have Ronin but I still often think of that little one and what could have been; a little tiny angel now.

In the process of writing this post I’ve also come to learn that October is SIDS awareness month. Which I guess brings me to this: Oh my god! Ronin is now about 2 1/2 months old and the thought of SIDS has been driving me a bit batty lately. I mean, I try not to think about it too much, but it seems impossible! Every time I do a google search for anything baby related, ultimately something comes up about SIDS. It’s just such a difficult topic and since there is not too much solid information about the actual cause, it seems everything could be a cause. As a first time mom this is all a bit overwhelming, not to mention terrifying. I honestly try not to think about it too much but if it gets in my head the next thing I know I’m sitting there listening to him breathe while he is sleeping. We do our best, and I know that is really all we can do… He only sleeps on his back, hence Back is Best, he is strictly a boob man, we leave the ceiling fan on (well, now that’s it’s cooling off I don’t know that we’ll be able to. brrr.), and our pediatrician even said that the once forbidden in our eyes pacifier may also help lower his chances, so pacifier it is. I have not bought one of those movement monitors but as my brain tries to wrap itself into knots over SIDS I can certainly see their beauty. Well, I could go on with my fears and general craziness about this but I probably shouldn’t. It wouldn’t be long before I left this post once again unfinished to go in and listen to my peacefully sleeping baby. I know that while SIDS does affect a lot of families every year the actual odds of it happening to your child is fairly low. Then again, I also know that SIDS has effected more families than is fair, more families than I would like to know of. If your family or a family you know has lost a little one to SIDS my heart truly aches for you.

One last note about Back is Best which is neither here nor there… Before I got pregnant with Ronin I was a strict side and belly, well, sort of a combination of the two. You know where you’re not really on your side fully but your also not a true stomach sleeper, you know the type, ya? Well, I was one of those. Then as my belly grew I had to train myself to be a side sleeper, and not just a side sleeper but a left side sleeper. Did I forget to mention that I was a right side/tummy whatever kind of sleeper? Ok, check and check. Add the pillows between my knees as my hips started hurting and then add another pillow to shove under the increasing heavy tummy, and then occasionally I would need a pillow kind of shoved under my back so I didn’t roll onto my back as I was heavily sinking into the bed. Oy. So, I am sure you are wondering where in the world I am going with all this sleep nonsense and also probably why you are still reading about all this crazy sleep nonsense well here it is: I am now a back sleeper. I don’t know how or why but every time I wake up, which I do quite a bit, you know feeding a baby several times in the night and being crazy and listening to a sleeping baby breathe, I’m on my back. So, I guess back really is best.

I am struggling today.  I have been struggling for the last couple of days.  It’s like the postnatal depression I suffered after each of my children were born.  Come to think of it, I’ve felt like this after every big endeavor.  After one of my children died of SIDS, I threw myself into fundraising.  After each event was over I would feel a bit like this, overwhelmed, wanting to run away from it all.  Maybe all the creative energy I’ve poured into this project, working on the materialization of my dreams, launching the blog; it’s a; been like given birth.  Maybe now I am suffering from post-natal depression.  But the difference is that now I know not to give in. My work today is to write on my book of  “positive aspects” as Abraham-Hicks suggests in; Ask and It Is Given. One by one I will write down what I like and love about the people, things and circumstances in my life, and why.  That should help me focus my attention on what I do like, which in turn will activate a positive vibration within me, to which the Law of Attraction will respond by bringing to my attention more things to feel good about.  And the better one feels the better it gets and the better it gets, the better one feels and on and on.

The other thing I’m doing is called “scripting” (also in Ask and It Is given). In this script, a producer from the Oprah Winfrey show calls me to say that Oprah has been reading my blog, and she wants to interview me on her show.  Nice script, right?

I really want to be back to my normal, good feeling self, as soon as possible.

See you tomorrow

Your friend,

Success

Following the publication of new research on risk factors involved in Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) 1 and subsequent media coverage, UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative has issued the following statement.

The SWISS study, designed to investigate the factors associated with SIDS in 0-2 year-olds, draws a clear link between increased risk of SIDS and alcohol or drug use when co-sleeping with a baby, particularly on a sofa.

The study, examining 80 SIDS infants and two control groups, one randomly selected, one of babies at high-risk of SIDS, showed that many of the deaths in a co-sleeping situation could be explained by “a significant multivariable interaction between co-sleeping and recent parental use of alcohol or drugs (31 per cent v 3 per cent random controls) and the increased proportion of SIDS infants who had co-slept on a sofa (17 per cent v 1 per cent).” Other
significant factors included pillow use, swaddling, smoking during pregnancy, whether the infant was preterm and whether the infant was in fair or poor health for the last sleep.

The authors conclude that “the major influences on risk were from factors amenable to change within the infant’s sleeping environment….Parents need to be advised never to put themselves in a situation where they might fall asleep with a young infant on a sofa. Parents also need to be reminded that they should never co-sleep with an infant in any environment if they have consumed alcohol or drugs.”

Much media coverage yesterday focused on the study’s statistic that 54 per cent of the infants in the study died whilst co-sleeping, without noting whether it was in a bed or on the sofa. In fact, the percentage of infants that died whilst sharing the parental bed was 38 per cent, which was the same as the percentage of infants that died in the cot.

Furthermore, “the proportion of SIDS infants found co-sleeping in a bed with parents who had drunk two units or less of alcohol and taken no drugs was no different from that of the random control infants (18 per cent v 16 per cent). If parents who regularly smoked were further excluded, then five of the SIDS infants (6 per cent) were found in this less risky co- sleeping environment compared with nine of the random control infants (10 per cent).”

In their conclusion, the authors state “The safest place for an infant to sleep is in a cot beside the parents’ bed. Based on evidence from research into SIDS it is questionable whether advice to avoid bed sharing is generalisable and whether such a simplistic approach would do no harm.”

UNICEF UK has noted previously that bed-sharing has several benefits, such as helping parents to cope with babies who wake frequently to be fed or who are unsettled in the night. Bed-sharing is also associated with an increase in breastfeeding – possibly because many mothers find it hard to get enough rest if they do not breastfeed lying down 2. Breastfeeding is universally recognised as one of the pillars of child health and survival with well established evidence regarding the many health benefits to both babies and mothers. Of particular note is a recent review of the impact of breastfeeding which identified that breastfeeding reduces the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) by 36 per cent in the industrialised world 3. Strenuous efforts are now being made by the Department of Health and others to increase the UK’s low breastfeeding rates in order to improve public health 4,5,6.

Young babies wake and feed frequently both day and night and tired parents are at risk of falling asleep with their baby, especially during the night, whatever their intention. Therefore, parents require full information regarding the various strategies for coping at night, along with the benefits and risks of all approaches in order to allow informed decision making.

In an interview with UNICEF UK, Dr Peter Blair, a co-author of the SWISS study, said “We need to remind parents that there are certain situations where you never share a bed and balance that with sharing a bed at other times…It might be that if you demonise the parental bed you’re still going to get tired mothers with young infants where the infant has woken up three or four times in the night and needs feeding and the mother’s walking around thinking
they can’t take them into the bed, so they go onto the sofa and there they fall asleep. That will and does happen. So coming out with a simplistic statement about bedsharing can do more harm than good.”

In recognition of this, the UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative has for some time been working to assist health professionals to discuss bed-sharing with parents so that risks can be identified and minimised, rather than attempting to promote restrictions which cannot be applied in parents’ real worlds.

A sample bed-sharing policy has been developed for hospitals and a leaflet for parents produced with the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths (FSID). Both are designed to promote safety whilst protecting breastfeeding, by educating health professionals and parents on the benefits, contra-indications and safety issues surrounding this practice. UNICEF has also been urging NHS trusts to acknowledge the gap in health professional’s
knowledge and provide training on all aspects of bed-sharing, including best practice for hospitals and how to communicate the key messages effectively to parents depending on their needs and circumstances.

Footnotes

1. Blair PS, Sidebotham P, Evason-Coombe C, Edmonds M, Heckstall-Smith EMA, Fleming P (2009). Hazardous cosleeping environments and risk factors amenable to change: case-control study of SIDS in south west England. BMJ 2009;339:b3666

2. Blair PS and Ball HL (2004). The prevalence and characteristics associated with parent-infant bed-sharing in England. Arch Dis Child 89:1106-1110

3. Ip S. et al (2007) Breastfeeding and Maternal Health Outcomes in Developed Countries. AHRQ Publication. No.07-E007.
4. HM Government (2008) PSA Delivery Agreement 12: Improve the health and wellbeing of children and young people.
5. Department of Health (2008) Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives A Cross Government Strategy for England. London: The Stationery Office.
6. Department of Health (2008) Health Inequalities: Progress and Next Steps. London: The Stationary Office

More than half of cot deaths occur when a baby is sleeping with a parent, with drinking or drug-taking by the adult a likely contributory factor, a study suggests.

An analysis of all unexpected infant deaths, from birth to two years old, in a four-year period in the South West showed that the majority occurred when a parent was with the child, often asleep on the sofa…

Here is the full article Times Online (14 October 2009)

I know someone who sadly this happened to recently. The husband was very tired (as normal with a new born) and had a few drinks. He fell asleep on the sofa with his five week old baby on him. Sadly the baby died. It was a complete tragedy.

However there are a few of my friends (and many mums) who do co-sleep with their babies, in bed, in a planned and safe way. The babies are generally by their mothers, on the outside of the bed. This has been happening for generations, in all countries.

I think the important message to get across, regardless of socio-economic group, is do not cosleep with your baby if you have been drinking/smoking and do not sleep on sofas with babies.

]]> http://womantowomancbe.wordpress.com/2009/10/17/pregnancy-and-infant-loss-remembrance-day/ Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:06:09 +0000 Kathy http://womantowomancbe.wordpress.com/2009/10/17/pregnancy-and-infant-loss-remembrance-day/ http://travelingwithbaby.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/health-happy-round-up-part-i/ Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:28:52 +0000 Dr. Dolly Garnecki http://travelingwithbaby.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/health-happy-round-up-part-i/

Welcome to a weekly series on Traveling with Baby, Health Happy Round-Up which focuses on multiple aspects of wholesome living and optimal health for the entire family.  Each weekend, Traveling with Baby will share some insightful news, recipes, and tips to help you consider fresh new perspectives on wholesome and happy health.

Few will argue the benefits of breastfeeding a newborn.  It’s the perfect food with the bionutrients and perfect ratio of fats, protein, and carbohydrates for a newborn to older baby depending on the stage of their development and maturity.  Breast milk fats/protein/carbos ratio actually changes throughout the course of the year to mimic baby’s gut development and digestion needs!

Breastfeeding benefits to baby:

• Increases baby’s immune defense for faster recovery from illness since the mother is able to create antibodies and distribute them through breast milk to baby
• Reduces cavities and need for braces
• Reduces risk of colic, diarrhea, SIDS, obesity, ear infections, respiratory illness, allergies, diaper rash, osteoporosis, diabetes, infantile cancer, and death
• Increases IQ up to 20 points
• Prevents malnutrition
• Increases social and better psychomotor development of baby
• Promotes better growth and satisfies baby’s need for sucking
• Prevents the development of pathogenic germs in the intestines
• Contains lactoferrin that transports iron and increases immune defense

Breastfeeding Benefits to Mom:

• Increases the mother-infant bonding relationship
• Reduces risk of post-partum depression
• Reduces the reappearance of menstruation, thereby allowing more time until the next pregnancy
• Decreases the risk of breast and ovarian cancer
• Reduces puerperal bleeding and fever
• Promotes the education of others in the family to practice breastfeeding
• Helps a woman realize her role as mother
• It’s practical–moms can nurse frequently throughout the night (without washing bottles), when traveling, anytime and anywhere
• It’s a huge psychological benefit to baby, mom, and the entire family
• Saves money and time

Breastfeeding Benefits to the Planet:

• It’s always the perfect temperature and it’s produced it the necessary amount–doesn’t require heating and energy waste
• Doesn’t require a storage container
• Reduces the use of medications, medical procedures, and hospitalizations
• Saves money in health care services
• Does not leave residue or garbage
• Doesn’t pollute the environment
• It’s hygienic and sterile

Sometimes mothers defer to boy-based or dairy-based formula because 1) it’s convenient, 2) although rare, sometimes the baby has a medical condition that prevents the suck reflex, or 3) even rarer, the mother has a glandular deficiency in the breast tissue.

I have dear friends with babies who were born with conditions that prevented nursing at the breast, and I am in awe of them for pumping breast milk around-the-clock to support their babies’ needs.  However, medical conditions in babies are rare.  The inability of mothers to produce enough milk is even rarer.

Often, difficulties with latch-on and sucking enough milk are related to jaw or TMJ or upper neck spinal bone misalignments that can occur through the birth process.   Gentle chiropractic treatment can help babies regain a normal suck reflex by removing nervous system interference.  Read more about how chiropractic care can improve a baby’s suck reflex through the International Chiropractic Pediatrics Association.

For more on breastfeeding, check out Part II, Breastfeeding Support for Moms, and Extended Breastfeeding.

Your Turn:

What are your favorite benefits of breastfeeding?

Subscribe // Twitter me: drdolly

Het moge zo zijn dat de in het artikel genoemde studieresultaten een nieuw licht op het fenomeen wiegendood (in het Engels aangeduid als SIDS; Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) werpt, het is evenwel stuitend dat opnieuw zoveel ‘oud licht’ hardnekkig en stelselmatig genegeerd wordt. Hoeveel baby’s moeten er nog sterven, hoeveel jonge ouders geconfronteerd worden met het immense verdriet over het plotselinge verlies van hun baby, voordat er ook door wetenschappers en beleidsmakkers eens eerlijk over dit drama gesproken wordt? Oud licht? Ja, heel oud. Al in 1933 waren de eerste meldingen van het overlijden van baby’s nadat ze  waren gevaccineerd tegen kinkhoest.

In 1982 meldde de Amerikaanse wetenschapper William C. Torch na een uitvoerige studie van 70 gevallen van wiegendood: “DKT-vaccinatie zou weleens een over het algemeen niet-onderkende voorname oorzaak van SIDS en andere sterfgevallen op zeer jonge leeftijd kunnen zijn, zodat de mogelijke voordelen van immunisatie wellicht niet opwegen tegen de gevaren. Dit onderzoek wijst op de noodzaak tot herevaluatie en misschien ook herziening van de huidige vaccinatieprocedure.” Torch is hevig bekritiseerd vanwege zijn ondersoek en zijn conclusies. En het zal u niet ontgaan zijn dat zijn bevindingen en die van andere wetenschappers niet in het minst hebben geleid tot de aanbevolen herziening. In Japan is het verschijnsel wiegendood geheel verdwenen nadat zowel de volle-celvaccins als de acellulaire vaccins werden uitgesteld tot na het tweede levensjaar. Een gegeven dat niet genegeerd kan worden. Maar er is meer wetenschappelijk bewijs. Er zijn glasheldere observaties gedaan met behulp van de Cotwatch ademmonitor. Een technische vinding waarmee het ademhalingspatroon van baby’s geregistreerd en vastgelegd kan worden. Deze onderzoeken leverden objectieve en volstrekt wetenschappelijk bewijzen op over de oorzakelijke relatie tussen DKT (Difterie-Kinkhoest-Tetanus) en DT (Difterie-Tetanus) vaccinaties en wiegendood. Deze ademhalingsregistraties die zorgden voor een non-stop registratie van de ademhaling gedurende de slaapperioden, lieten zien dat er na de vaccinaties een uitgesproken verandering optrad in het patroon en de duur van de verandering van de ademhaling. Bestudering van de gevallen van wiegendood binnen de onderzochte populatie baby’s rechtvaardigden de conclusie dat ‘de dood ten gevolge van blootstelling aan het aspecifieke stresssyndroom’ was opgetreden. Het onderzoek toonde aan dat zich bij baby’s ook lang na 48 uur of 7 dagen na de DKT-vaccinatie nog episodes van sterk door stress beïnvloede ademhaling voordoen.

Ik twijfel er niet aan dat vervolgens secundair invloed denkbaar is van de slaapomstandigheden. In situaties van een ontregeling van het ademhalingspatroon als gevolg van het aspecifieke stresssyndroom is het goed voorstel baar dat buikligging van de baby bepaald ongunstiger is dan rugligging. Maar het is wetenschappelijk bepaald onzorgvuldig te noemen dat er voorbijgegaan wordt aan zoveel wetenschappelijke bewijslast die aangeeft dat de oorzakelijke factor net één stap eerder gezocht moet worden. Wat je niet wilt zien, zie je ook niet.

Those of us with endometriosis are at an increased risk for infertility and miscarriages. There are multiple factors for this, and that’s a whole other post. Another time and another place. Many of have experienced miscarriages and stillborns and know the pain that loss brings into their lives. They weep for those lost toes. They mourn the giggles they’ll never hear. And they endlessly imagine what their baby would’ve had look liked, sounded like, and grown up to be. And they never stop asking themselves why. But you don’t need a chronic illness to experience this devastating loss. You can be perfectly healthy and for no reason lose your child, lose your growing baby.

According to the Pregnancy & Infant Loss Remembrance Day website:

(the above is a direct quote but I can’t get WP to format correctly)

At 7 p.m. people are united by one candle flame of light in honor of all the little angels lost in pregnancy and after birth. Congress recognized this as an official day of remembrance, let us now unite to help the healing begin and to remember.

Someone close to me has a personal connection to this day, as some of my followers already know. It’s devastating when pregnancy and infant loss touches your life or those of your loved ones. It leaves you feeling powerless. But today we can light a candle and feel that we bind together in remembering.

Good news! Researchers at St. Michael’s Hospital in Bristol, England have released their new study on SIDS.

For those of you who don’t already know, SIDS in short for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and is commonly used to refer to describe an unexplained death of an infant. When most of us think of this, we imagine a baby all tucked in and cozy in their bed who just simply dies for no reason.

Over the years, we have been told that SIDS can be caused by parents smoking, babies put to sleep on their tummies, babies sleeping on their backs, babies sleeping on their sides, babies having stuffed animals in their cribs, babies being given pillows. The medical experts like to switch it up every so often because no one knows why sometimes babies just die. Of course it’s really sad and we don’t want it to happen, so we follow all the current guidelines for sleepytime safety and we buy the fancy baby monitors etc. etc. etc..

Now it has been determined that if you fall asleep on the couch with your baby while you’re drunk and on drugs, the baby has a higher likelihood of dying of SIDS.

This doesn’t seem at all like part of the SIDS mystery to me. Drunk and on drugs baby smothering doesn’t fall under the category of mysterious deaths. I always thought that SIDS deaths couldn’t be exlained. Isn’t that the reason why it’s such a mystery? Why even bother throwing in explained deaths into the study of unexplained deaths? That makes no sense. What do you think?

Here’s a thought; maybe drunk and on drugs is NOT the best frame of mind to be in while minding a baby. I wonder if anyone already knew that?

This new study is useless.

Matthew Clark McKenna became one of God’s little angels on April 30, 1987.

October is SIDS Awareness Month. It’s not a cause I would have picked to support – frankly, I would have thought it was too sad. After all, who really wants to think about losing a child. Nobody.

I never thought about it, either, but that didn’t stop it from changing my life forever. It was April 30, 1987, when I lost my child to SIDS. The darkest day of my life was when we went from a lullabye to goodbye.

Losing a child is devestating. It’s also senseless when you don’t really know why. The questions are never answered; the cause is never cured.  That is all the more reason why I believe it is so important to spare one, two , and hopefully, every child from being the victim of SIDS.

Please help me and others in our quest to save babies. No parent should ever have to go from a lullabye to goodbye.

Here’s how you can help:

Visit www.sidscenter.org to get details on SIDS.

Visit www.firstcandle.org

Help Twitter PickNicksBrain and win prizes, too:  Great prizes this month in our SIDS Awareness October Giveaway. See post for details on how to enter. http://bit.ly/octgvawy

Order a copy of my book, Caution: Children Should Come With Warning Labels (not about SIDS). I wil donate a portion of the proceeds to SIDS research, and my publisher will match my donation. Free shipping at www.UrbanEdgePublishing.com.

If my son’s life had a purpose, let it be to help  us erase SIDS forever.

Once again the ‘risks’ of bed-sharing and SIDS is all over the news.  I am so tired of seeing

co-sleeping

mis-reporting and poor methodology in these studies that I have taken some time to look over current evidence and advice.

“Over half of cot deaths occur whilst co-sleeping”

Or so says the study that is currently being used to scaremonger.  This is a retrospective study by a team from Warwick and Bristol Universities.  They looked at the evidence for 80 babies who died of SIDS in the SW region.  The BBC report that ’sharing a bed is a factor in more than 50% of cases’ followed confusingly by the statement that ‘many of the deaths occurred when parent and infant slept together on a sofa’.  Hmmm.

So what did the study find? That in 43 out of the 80 deaths the parents were co-sleeping.  But in 7.31 (?) of those cases they were on a sofa.  In 13.3 of those cases the parents had consumed drugs or alcohol.   A further 16 out of the total of 80 babies were on a pillow or swaddled and the authors state that these risk factors were the same in either group  so we can assume that 8 babies were on a pillow or swaddled.  So around 28-29 of those 43 cases were definately not safely bed-sharing or bed-sharing at all.

The study makes no reference as to whether the parents were smoking – a contributing factor in the vast majority of cot deaths.  And there is no reference to breastfeeding – a protective factor in the vast majority of cases.

So what does this study really tell us?  That without the important information about smoking and breastfeeding 15 out of 80 of the babies who died of SIDS were sharing a bed with a parent who was not drunk or on drugs.  This doesn’t tell us very much.  I have contacted the team who authored the study asking for clarification about smoking and breastfeeding and will update the blog if I hear back from them.

Other Evidence

Moving away from this specific study, what other evidence abounds about bed sharing and SIDS?  The number of studies is huge.  To enable results that can be considered rigerous and therefore actually truthful:

UNICEF further recommends that all future research into infant death and sleeping environments should unambiguously record data on … the baby’s sleep surface, maternal and paternal smoking status, alcohol and drug consumption and infant feeding method. These factors should be recorded at the time of infant death (rather than relying on data for other periods such as feeding method at delivery or smoking status during pregnancy) and the results adjusted to control for them.

However it is very difficult to come across any study that actually takes into account these recommendations, let alone reports it’s findings within these guidelines and separates out the evidence as stated above.

The nearest I have found is a study published in the British Medical Journal entitled Babies sleeping with parents: case-control study of factors influencing the risk of sudden infant death syndrome. The study was part of the CESDI (Confidential Enquiry into Stillbirth and Death in Infancy) carried out annually in the UK.

This study was published in 1999.  It was a three year, population based case-control study.  The authors studied all cases within a population of 470,000 births.  During the three year study the authors examined 325 SIDS cases, and also those of 1300 ‘control’ infants matched for age, locality and time of sleep.  They interviewed all parents.

Findings initially showed an increased risk for infants sharing the parental bed for the whole sleep, babies sleeping in their own bedrooms and infants who shared a sofa.

However, the risk for infants sharing the parental bed was found to be not significant for older infants >14wks or any infant whose parents did not smoke.

The authors concluded that :

There is no evidence that bed sharing is hazardous for infants of parents who do not smoke.

This study found that if parents don’t smoke and BED share (rather than sofa share) they are no more likely to suffer from SIDS than babies in a cot in their non-smoking parents bedroom.   However babies in their own rooms are at more risk of SIDS than babies in a cot in their non-smoking parents bedroom.  So, why is this fact so under-reported?

More information and analysis of this study can be found at the Mothering Magazine website.

Conclusion?

Given that bed-sharing has been shown to be crucial in establishing a successful breastfeeding relationship, is practised safely worldwide and is practised in the UK and ‘developed’ world by the majority of parents it is about time that it stopped being demonised by the authorities and the media.

There is no rigourous evidence that safe bed-sharing is related to an increased rate of cot death.  FACT.

Find out how to bed-share safely with the information from UNICEF or Dr Sarah Buckley.