Are Infants Sharing a Bed With Another Person at Increased Risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome?

The recent publication by Professor James McKenna and colleagues in Sleep speculates that co-sleeping may protect some infants from sudden infant death. syndrome (SIDS) (1). The article briefly comments on our work, which found that infants sharing a bed with another person were at increased risk of SIDS compared with those sleeping alone (2), but ignores other studies that also suggested it to be a risk factor. The aim of this presentation is to review the epidemiological evidence linking bed sharing with SIDS and to argue that the association may be causal. Bed sharing is a more satisfactory definition than co-sleeping, as co-sleeping may refer to sharing the bed, an infant sleeping in the arms of another person or even to close proximity but without bodily contact.