Wednesday 14 October 2009

Cot death news

The latest news today is apparently that sleeping with your baby increases the risk of cot death. Now, I'm not going to tell anyone that they should or should not co-sleep. It's up to you, and anyone who reads this blog regularly will already know what I do.

My point is this: I don't think anyone should make a decision about their child's wellbeing based on what they have read or seen in the media.

And guess what? I'm a newspaper journalist.

The sad fact is that most media organisations do not invest enough in staffing to allow journalists to properly research stories and make sure they give an accurate, balanced view.

The BBC's online article about this story is actually rather contradictory. In one paragraph it says sharing a bed is a factor in 50% of cot death cases. In the next it says many of the deaths occurred when parent and child slept together on a sofa. Er? How can many of the 50% of deaths that occurred through sharing a bed have happened through sharing a sofa? A sofa and a bed are quite clearly very different things. Then there's the smoking, alcohol and sedating drugs angle....

Vaccinations, cot death, hygiene, nutrition, car seats... parents are bombarded with scare stories. My advice would be to take it all with a very large pinch of salt. And, for the important decisions, to do your research yourself by going to the source of the scare stories. At least the BBC makes it easy for you; there's a link to the British Medical Journal report of the study on the web page.

2 comments:

  1. I was disappointed by the BBC's coverage of this "new" research. Seemed like the same old same old to me...

    Thankfully it did enable me to set the record straight for some colleagues who thought I was going to kill my child ;o)

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  2. The Guardian article was a better reflection.

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