Co-sleeping under any circumstances is not safe for infant sleep, the American Academy of Pediatrics stressed Tuesday in the first update to its safe sleep guidelines for babies since 2016.
“We know that many parents choose to share a bed with a child, for instance, perhaps to help with breastfeeding or because of a cultural preference or a belief that it is safe,” said Dr. Rebecca Carlin, who coauthored the guidelines and technical report from the AAP Task Force on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and the AAP Committee on Fetus and Newborn, in a statement.
“The evidence is clear that (co-sleeping) significantly raises the risk of a baby’s injury or death,” said Carlin, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. “For that reason AAP cannot support bed-sharing under any circumstances.”