I’ve written before about the mainstream press taking on attachment parenting practices with cheap journalistic scare tactics.
Now Bruce Schneier, a computer security blogger, is using scary headlines about co-sleeping as an example of people’s poor understanding of risk. His short essay is worth reading. The basic summary: the newspaper touts a raw number of deaths related to co-sleeping, with no context for the number. Do 20 out of 20 co-sleeping infants die? 20 out of 20 million? How many crib sleeping infants die?
If peeking behind the curtain of irresponsible scare journalism doesn’t freak you out enough, here’s another scary website: Let’s Panic! This one might make you laugh so hard you pee your pants (especially if you are great with child), but don’t worry. They’ll viciously mock you and then tell you how to get the stains out.
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Question– whose photo is in the header, i mean, did you take it?
I can’t find your bike trailer post-
http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090727/NEWS01/907270323/1010/ARCHIVES
So, here’s the statistic. 515 deaths in eight years. Three-quarters of the deaths happen in the first three months.
“According to the CPSC, at least 515 deaths were linked to infants and toddlers under 2 years of age sleeping in adult beds from January 1990 to December 1997.” More than 75% of these were for infants younger than three months. 121 deaths were from a parent, caregiver or sibling rolling against on or top of the baby. Risk factors are: drinking, smoking, and older children, who might not be aware of the baby when asleep. http://kidshealth.org/parent/general/sleep/cosleeping.html
Some might say, if it’s my kid, it’s 100%, so statistics don’t matter. But, we found with SIDS that not only do statistics matter, but other factors matter too and that means you can affect the odds. It’s not random.
I don’t buy the argument, however, that “my kid’s ok, so it’s not really dangerous.” I heard the same argument from a woman who smoked through both pregnancies, back in the 60s, when strangers were not giving you daggers for such a practice, but, she was defensive about it, even then.
So, look at the numbers. Decide what works for you. You’re not going to raise your children in a bubble, and raising them to be afraid of everything is worse than calculating reasonable risk, which we do every time we step off the curb. And, everyone else’s opinion is just that, opinion.