Sleeping with babies, what is known as schooling with them, is one of the practices that is most carried out in the world that raises most criticism in the western world, where it is not too well seen, by having single beds and individual rooms and there is a belief that children are better sleeping alone or less in danger.
On the danger, normally centered on the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), there is still a lot of data. There are studies that have suggested that sleeping with children increases the risk of SIDS, however there are other studies that conclude that there is a protective factor, especially if it is done in a safe way (since if it is done without having minimum security measures the risk is greater than if they sleep alone).
This arrival of constant contrary studies makes many health professionals cautious when recommending the collection to parents, because it is one thing to have it as an option for parents who want to do it, and another is to tell parents " sleep with your baby, which will be better for everyone. " Now, however, a recent study throws a little more wood on the fire by concluding that Babies who sleep with their parents are breastfed for longer.
It is recommended that children be breastfed for at least two years
There will be those who ask "And what does a mother want to breastfeed for longer, if six months is enough?" Well, six months of exclusive breastfeeding is what is recommended for all babies, and not even with that recommendation that everyone knows is achieved, since only 38% of babies in the world reach that recommendation (well, baby not, their mothers).
But the recommendation does not end there. What is said is that they drink breast milk exclusively for six months and that from that moment the child begins to eat other things, but that breastfeeding is still the main food until the year (that not the only one), then, from the year on, the main food of the child will be a balanced diet, passing the breast milk to be another food, in addition to comfort and in addition to remaining an important source of defenses (that of fact is almost more important than the good food that it can be).
That is, that the thing remains in something like "if you want to do what your baby's body expects to develop normally, give breast milk at least until two years, and then continue if you wish, leaving it when the mother or the baby wants to leave it. "
Why two years?
Because the immune system of babies and children is very poor, it is developing, it is immature, and any contribution of defenses that may come from abroad will be pearl. How the only contribution of defenses is breast milkWell, there is nothing more to say. On other occasions we have explained it, but we repeat it again: the baby's body is born tremendously immature in many ways, it is a completely helpless animal, and among its immaturity is having a fairly incapable immune system, which must be strengthened from the outside .
Nature, wise, decided that the milk that was going to feed the baby had those defenses that the baby doesn't have, This is why a baby's body expects to receive breast milk as an aid until it is able to defend itself, something that happens sometime between two and six years.
Data about the study
All this serves to explain why this study is important and why the fact that sleeping with babies makes them able to breastfeed for longer is relevant. Professionals do nothing but break our horns to try to give information to mothers so they know why it is recommended that they breastfeed their babies for two years or more. As you can see, we are not getting it, given the figures, and largely because of the fact that many professionals do not break the horns, nor do they have horns to break, basically because, or they do not give the information, or they give it badly, achieving precisely the opposite, for mothers to wean early.
To which it was, the study that commented, published by JAMA Pediatrics and conducted at the University of Maryland, in the US, was carried out with 1846 mothers who answered a questionnaire about family customs from the time they were pregnant until the baby's first year of life. The questionnaires were sent from the first to the sixth month (each month) and then at 7, 9, 10 and 12 months of age of the child.
The fact that the mother remained lying next to the baby or slept with him in the same bed or on another surface throughout the night or for most of the time was considered colecho. The objective of the study was knowing how it affected the fact that mothers shared space with babies in breastfeeding.
The researchers saw that Babies sleeping with their mothers were breastfed for longer, although they found no association between where the babies slept and when they began to eat other things, that is, exclusive breastfeeding was no longer prolonged in the mothers they collected. We have no data about it, since we can only read the abstract of the study, but it would be interesting to know when breastfeeding ceased to be exclusive, because of course, if this happened at six months, it is absurd to pretend that some lengthen it more than the others, since it is the time when it is recommended that Stop being exclusive.
In addition, they observed that mothers were breastfeeding for a longer time when they had a better education (I imagine higher levels of education), when they were white, if they had previously breastfed another baby, if they had planned to breastfeed their baby and if they had not had to return to work in the first year after delivery. Obviously, crossing all these variables, they saw that Colecho was still one of the factors that helped babies to breastfeed longer.
And what do we do, if the risk of Sudden Death Syndrome is still there?
Well, I know. Every father or mother who does what he considers best, or rather, what your child considers best. There are children who have no problem sleeping apart from the mother, hey, if you're afraid to sleep with him or you're not comfortable, you can always put a crib next to the bed and, if he asks, take him, breastfeed and when I finish putting it back in it. Or even put a crib attached to the bed, which is apparently considered less dangerous.
If instead the child asks for a lot of contact, whether it's sucking, either putting your arm on top or your foot on your face, that this also happens, because sleep with him, read the recommendations to do it safely, studies that say that colecho reduces the risk of SIDS (this book by McKenna is fantastic) and thus take off the label of bad mother or bad father, to do it in a responsible and safe way, And enjoy it.
