Anna's Soapbox

Here's some bad news (reporting) -- deconstruction, anyone? This crap makes me mad -- from the opening line the article makes an assumption that others have soundly refuted (Mothering mag has some good resources here). Not to mention the article's unbelievable racism.

"Research finds more bed-sharing with babies"

"More infants in the United States are sleeping in their parents' beds - a practice that can be deadly for babies.

"The percentage of infants who usually slept in a bed with an adult more than doubled from 5.5 percent to 12.8 percent between 1993 and 2000, according to a study led by Marian Willinger of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

"The practice is strongly influenced by cultural factors.

"The study found black infants were four times as likely as white babies to share an adult's bed, and Asian babies were almost three times as likely. Infants whose mothers were under 18 were more likely to bed-share; the practice also was more common in poor households.

"'They may not have a crib or bassinet for the baby, so the only place the baby can sleep is in the bed,' said Angelita Covington, an Atlanta pediatrician. Some parents, she said, may take their babies into their beds because it is a practice passed down through generations.

"Covington, who works in a community health center that sees mostly poor people, said she discouraged bed-sharing.

"The study, which appears in the January issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, warns that babies can fall out of bed and get hurt, or can suffocate when an adult rolls over or the child becomes trapped between the mattress and the bed frame. Other research suggests bed-sharing can raise the risk of sudden infant death syndrome.

"According to a 1999 study by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, an average of 64 young children die each year while sleeping in bed with their parents or other adults.

"Some have suggested bed-sharing has benefits, such as promoting breast-feeding.

"In this study, researchers from the National Institutes of Health concluded there needed to be more study on the benefits or hazards.

"The study was based on a telephone survey of a nationally representative group of 8,453 people."

Interpretation of the study results, however, was based on a narrow, privileged, crib-manufacturer-sponsored viewpoint that people universally don't know what's best for their children. Aside from the AP writer's complete lack of objectivity, present from the opening salvo, the cultural biases in this piece and in the study it reports on are staggering. "Cultural practices" is a code term for presumed ignorance anyway, but the study and article writers just had to add that people of color, poor families, and teenaged moms all do this more often than financially comfortable white people who of course "know better." And then the article writer just had to throw in that 1999 "study" by the oh-so-objective Consumer Product Safety Commission -- an organization that gets a lot of support (financial and otherwise) from crib and other baby gear manufacturers. By the way.