In recent years, co-sleeping or “co-sleeping” has become more and more widespread among young mothers, especially in Scandinavian countries. Co-sleeping simply consists of sharing your bed and duvet with baby during the first months after birth. In France, this practice is not recommended because the risk of sudden infant death remains very high until the age of 6 months. But until now, this practice was very widespread in Sweden, a European country where 65% of mothers of babies under 3 months co-sleeping. And where 29% of mothers admit having already had sex with their partner while their baby was sleeping in their bed.
Yet Swedish medical authorities seem determined to back off and advise parents of newborns not to sleep with their babies. ”
“It is important that children under three months sleep in their own beds,” said Kerstin Nordstrand, a health officer in the Social Affairs Administration. The advice is “new”, she added, recalling that until then, Sweden only advised against this practice when parents were in a smoking room or when they were under the influence of substances that decrease their vigilance.
The advice follows the publication of a British study which shows that sleeping with a baby in the same bed increases the risk of sudden infant death syndrome by five. According to this study, covering nearly 1,500 babies who died of sudden infant death syndrome, 22% of these deaths had occurred in the parental bed.
