Gwenna Michele is 5 weeks old tomorrow. Every day we wake up next to each other, and my heart resumes its happy fluttering. Parenting this child has been everything I could hope for, and more. And she's not even 5 weeks old.
I couldn't imagine this little creature getting injured or anything beyond that- my heart would simply stop. That's one of the reasons I am so, so grateful I chose to bed-share. I ignored the hospital literature, the nurses' warnings, the pediatricians' warnings, and the attacks from other, "more caring" mothers, and on day 2, began to sleep with my baby in my bed.
My baby sleeps on her stomach. Not only that- but on her stomach, in my bed. And not only that! On her stomach, in my bed, on me. Surely, if she doesn't die before the age of 10, she will still be in my bed at night! Or so the nay-sayers say. I say... it's the only reason she's still around today.
Home from the hospital, day 2: Gwenna is sleeping peacefully in the top level of her pack-n-play. Zack is sitting at the computer inches away. I take advantage of this and go for a bath. I hear her cry out a couple of times, but I stifle my urge to run out and undermine my partner's parenting abilities... again. Seconds later, it doesn't matter. Zack has grabbed the baby and run screaming toward me, because she's choking and he has no idea what to do. I, a career nanny, know exactly what to do- I lean her forward and firmly pat her back. Nothing's happening. I keep at it. 5 seconds, 6 seconds, 7 seconds... still not breathing. At around 11 seconds, she takes a breath, coughs a couple of times, and calmly nuzzles her face into my shoulder and falls back asleep.
Okay- nothing to do with co-sleeping there, but that was the final experience we had with back sleeping. I had somewhat of a panic attack, and became convinced that my baby needed me to breathe and would not be let out of my sight. She'd spit up, laying on her back, and choked on it. For way too long, in my opinion. What if we hadn't been there? After she'd cried out initially, she was choking silently. What if she'd been in her crib and we were feet away, sleeping soundly? Taking what I knew about co-sleeping into consideration, I opted for bed-sharing. Cultures across the world sleep with their babies in their beds, even their arms, without any notion of what SIDS might be. So let's do this.
Now for the game plan: Mama propped up to the point of being in a pseudo-reclining chair. No way to turn over, or even move, without waking up that way. Baby in the Moby wrap. Breathable cloth keeping her on my chest with 3 different supports. Nothing around her face. Fan on. And... GO!
For these first few weeks, it's been wonderful. She wakes me up to feed her by wiggling and grunting. I actually have to help her wake up when I get the cues that she's hungry! She sleeps from about 10-2:30, then eats. Then wakes up again at about 5:30, then eats. Then she will sleep until 8:30, and eat again. That's right. My not-even-5-week-old baby girl has settled into her own sleep schedule.
Okay, so here is where bed-sharing becomes more than pleasant and helpful and becomes life-saving. Last night. 4 AM. Baby girl is squirming and grunting, not even awake... but showing signs of hunger. I'm having a hard time waking up to help her wake up. This is one of those times that if she were not in my bed, she would not be getting fed, because I wouldn't be waking up. The grunting is just getting annoying enough to move me to rub her back, and see if that will encourage her to sleep for a while longer before her second night feeding. I know- not the most selfless Mama move, but I wasn't awake enough to consider. So... shoot me later, after I finish the story.
I wake up and look at her when she gets quiet. Her eyes are wide, her neck is tightening, letting go... convulsing. She's begging me to do something with her watering eyes. I lean her forward and pat her, maybe 5 seconds this time... and she's better. The silent choke strikes again. This time, she'd been laying on her side- still in the Moby, so she couldn't fall into particularly plush bedding and get swallowed up, and propped up on a pillow higher than my abdomen so I couldn't possibly roll over her- and still choked. Count me the most grateful Mama alive that I had my choke-prone baby right next to me and squirming around, and not feet away in her crib where her grunts alone wouldn't have disturbed my sleep.
The benefits of bed-sharing don't stop at just being nearby in case something happens. Sleep sharing offers more skin-to-skin contact (more bonding for baby and Mama), easier night feedings for breastfeeding moms, lower risk of SIDS (YES- contrary to what you may have been told, SAFELY and PROPERLY bed-sharing DECREASES risk of SIDS: the stimulation from your warmth, breathing, and heartbeat decrease the odds of an apnea continuing for too long and resulting in SIDS), and more peaceful sleep for baby (and mom, if you're like me).
Of course, I can't just throw caution to the wind and encourage everyone to bed-share. If you're male, for example, you have to *really* protect against the possibility of rolling over your infant. Males typically sleep harder than females. Harder sleep also occurs after you've been drinking, if you're obese, or if you're on any depressant drugs. The presence of third-hand cigarette smoke (the kind that lives in your clothes and bedding) increases the risk of SIDS, so if you're a smoker, just quit! It'll be better for everyone, duh. Having a fan on in the room helps decrease the risk of SIDS, by the way. And if you have fluffy or loose bedding, make sure it's wayyyy far away from your little one. Inhaling fabric is even worse than inhaling cigarette smoke, if you can believe it.
Most moms of newborns are so in-tune to their babies that they can trust any movement or fussiness will wake them up, and mothers will be aware of baby's presence at all times and the possibility of rolling onto the baby is very low. However, if you're a panic-head like me and want to decrease the possibility further, try my method:
-Undress baby to her diaper. The skin-to-skin contact and warmth from being covered by the wrap will be enough warmth for her. (I also recommend sleeping in just a bra.)
-Put baby in a wrap, like the Moby or Sleepy wrap. make sure the shoulder straps are firmly supporting your little one's body. You can even use one of the straps to support the back of baby's head, if you have a newborn who won't wiggle her face into the fabric. If you have a little one with head control, put her arms on top of the straps so she can't wiggle her nose into them, and make sure the back panel is firmly supportive.
-Prop yourself up to a sitting or near-sitting position with pillows. I even put a Boppy behind my head so it's near for night feedings.
-Sweet dreams!
-If you can't sleep on your back, try side-sleeping: put baby in wrap, but situate her facing you as far as you can toward the opposite side you're laying on. Place a pillow halfway beneath you and all the way beneath your baby. Place as many pillows beneath your baby as necessary for you to be comfortable and for it to be impossibly for you to roll over her. The wrap will prevent her from falling between the pillows and your body. In the side position, I sleep turned a bit upwards, kind of diagonally, toward my baby. It's like she's still sleeping on top of my- and she is, a little bit, but she's mostly supported by the pillows.
Putting babies to sleep with a pacifier and keeping a fan on also decrease the risk of SIDS...
So here's my gripe of the day. Babies die of SIDS, statistically moreso on the belly than on the back, when sleeping away from mom. Shouldn't we be wondering why? When I read about the research that shows lighter sleep in infants results in decreased likelihood of SIDS, I put 2 and 2 together:
Babies sleep better on their tummies.
+
Babies who sleep better/uninterrupted/without outside stimulation are more likely to die of SIDS in their sleep.
=
Babies who sleep on their tummies (the most natural position) should have extra (gentle) stimulation during sleep (such as a fan or the rhythm of mom's heartbeat and breathing)
Hey... maybe that's why bed-sharing cultures, those which have no plush bedding and don't go to sleep drunk and don't smoke, have like, no dead babies?!
Not that my sum in the above equation was not "Babies should sleep on their backs away from parents where they have a distinct chance of choking on spit-up and silently dying; or just forgetting to breathe due to lack of adequate stimulation (sleeping on their backs may annoyance/stimulation enough for some babies, but obviously not for others...)
In a perfect world, this would be adequately researched and releases to the general public. Instead, the people who make the "parenting rules" in Western culture choose to ignore the helpful research on co-sleeping that they already have and opt for simply increasing the rate of survival of infants. Sure, sleeping on the back is generally safer than sleeping on the tummy, due to the stimulation sleeping on the back provides. But what about sleeping on the tummy on mommy's chest, or on a vibrating surface with a pacifier and a fan going in the room? Do you think that parents of infants who have died choking on their spit-up in the middle of the night, all alone, might appreciate that information? Do you think that the parents of babies who have died of SIDS might have appreciated actually understanding the mechanisms at work with SIDS rather than being told that they MUST place their baby in a crib alone because a few drunk fathers rolled onto their babies? Because the safety guidelines for safely co-sleeping were too expensive to advertise? What happened there, America, when you decided that parents were too stupid to understand how their tiny babies' bodies worked and you opted to preach a one-size-fits-all Back to Sleep campaign, and villainized bed sharing, while all available research points to the conclusion that babies naturally sleep on their tummies, and with their mothers?
I would love to see the parents of SIDS babies take the APA to court for their Back to Sleep campaign, or their stance on bed sharing, or both. they simply neglect to educate parents on the biology of their children, and scare the shit out of them with a syndrome that they claim is a complete mystery.
I would just like to know why. And my heart goes out to every well-meaning parent whose heart aches when they put their baby down in a crib to sleep, and miss that little one all night... because that's what you should do of course!
Okay, angry rant over. Carry on...
No comments:
Post a Comment