http://www.fox6now.com/news/witi-100503-bed-sharing,0,7099533.story
Also, click on this link to see Milwaukee's campaign.
http://city.milwaukee.gov/SafeSleep
Notice the flagrant and emotionally charged advertisements which portray a total lack of judgement in every way. A mountain of fluffy pillows, large billowy blankets all wadded up, only a diaper, babies on their bellies, ALONE. And then in the depiction, to show how dangerous sleeping with your baby could be, they place a Large Knife in the bed next to a sleeping baby.
I wonder, isn't this abuse by those producing those posters? I mean, If a social worker walked into a home with a baby undressed, sleeping on his/her belly, alone on a bed piled high with lose blankets and poofy pillows, AND A DANG KNIFE, wouldn't we be hearing about that in the news? Who puts a knife with baby's reach? and leaves them alone?
Granted, there are adults in the room, but they purposely did several dangerous things to two babies in order to prove a point about something not even portrayed.
My largest issue is that instead of telling the truth about co sleeping they simply desire to amputate it from society. The truth is that co sleeping has actually reduces SIDS There are many articles and blogs explaining these things. The Fact is of babies who've died in bed with their parents there is ONE factor in play 100 PERCENT of the time in the Milwaukee area. Further more, many of the deaths attributed to co sleeping actually have Nothing to do with WHERE baby slept at all but had to do with SIDS yet on the documentation the cause of death still states "co cleeping" which is extremely deceiving and bias! Here we have an opportunity to discuss and counsel parents on how to increase the safety of something they may be doing whether they tell others they are or not. We have an opportunity to reduce dangers, to clarify, to TEACH. Instead we have fear mongering, lying, and a full on assault and a repudiation of not only the practice some choose against, but of the people who do. We have a whole sale dismissal of and denial of any thought process, love, caring, or purpose to sleeping in the same bed as your baby.
Americans love "Information" and we tend to be a bit.....um...snooty, we believe we know everything about everything and that, in fact, we DO everything better than any one else in the world. However; healthcare seems to show us over and over and over again that when it comes to Pregnancy, Childbirth, Infants, and Education, we actually kinda suck. We live in a bubble of inferiority. We are at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to positive outcomes for Mothers and Infants; Cuba, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc...even have better positive outcomes for birth and the entire first year of life for babies. When it comes to sleeping with babies, we're just like we are about circumcision, the odd ones who do the exact opposite of what other countries do...we separate them very far from us so we can have sex. (come on, you know that is one of the LARGEST reasons--the whole "marital bed" thing as if that bed is the ONLY place a couple can be together) Do your own due diligence, research the causes of death in other country for infants in countries were co sleeping is the norm: Japan, Korea, Africa, Hong Kong, etc... Or, you can, again, simply look at our own atrocious score for the first year of life and ask one startling question; What are we doing differently from all these other countries? ...and then compare the answer to the suggestions by Milwaukee or any other organization. We need to refrain from "throwing out the baby with the bath water". Yes, indeed there are things we need to avoid but this "campaign" doesn't even touch them.
Here are are few other responses to this campaign. Each has some information I found useful and agree with.
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