When our first child was born, his place to sleep was the bassinet. There we put it every time he fell asleep and there we tried to spend the nights, between shots, because that's where we thought it was where babies should sleep. A terrible sublingual frenulum made the shots very frequent and that breastfeeding in bed and passing it to the bassinet would end up being an impossible one (there was no human being who could endure so many awakenings and hold awake waiting for him to finish breastfeeding) and so we get to spend more and more time all three in bed.
After reading some books like "Kiss Me a lot"or"Sleep without tears", in addition to other articles, we discover that sleeping with the baby was one more optionThat we were not potential terrorists, which is normal in most cultures of the world and was as respectable as who puts the child to sleep in the crib every night. For me, the colecho was from that moment as another option that parents whose children do not sleep well in the bassinet can choose.
For a while now, by continuing to research and read about this option I have realized that the colecho It is no longer just an option, but there are so many benefits, which now seems to me the most logical solution. In other words, I usually recommend that parents sleep with their babies and now I will tell you why.
Sleeping with the baby is beneficial because it is calmer
And to summarize it with a "is calmer" is to summarize a lot. Surely there is no person who does not enjoy the contact. Raise your hand who would not enjoy a little massage and caresses right now. We all like to be touched, to give us a massage, to caress us, to tell us how much they love us. Well, babies too. And they like it day and night.
Why do you think that when a premature baby is born in the neonatal units you are "almost forced" to put it on your chest? It doesn't matter if you are the mother or the father, they tell you to take off the top, put on a gown and put on the baby, just with his diaper, in skin-to-skin contact. It is the so-called kangaroo method that It has proven beneficial Because babies get more weight, have more stable heart rates, are calmer, have better health, and can leave before hospital.
Well, if you do not have a premature baby you can do the same, have that contact, that love and caresses with your baby, when you have it with you at night, by your side or on top of you while you have just fallen asleep.
Colecho is beneficial because babies regulate temperature better
Well, I am referring more to skin-to-skin contact, but surely for a baby it is equally easier to be warm next to dad and mom that I do not alone in a crib or bassinet. It has been seen that when the baby is in skin-to-skin contact with the mother, the mother's temperature is changing depending on the baby's temperature. If the baby is cold, mother's breast temperature rises two degrees to warm her. If the baby is hot, the mother's chest lower a grade.
This phenomenon is called thermal synchrony and is nothing more than a sign that babies have to be in close contact with the mother's body, and not crying in a cradle so that the lungs widen, so that get used to the arms or to become independent.
Sleeping with the baby is beneficial because the baby's sleep pattern is more regular
Many parents explain it, as I also explain: "is that when he is in the bassinet he wakes up often, but when we put him in bed he wakes up much less." Logical, since when you are close to us you do not have many concerns. If he doesn't see us, if he doesn't feel us, he doesn't know we're next there. In fact, he doesn't know we exist, and that makes all his survival alarms jump. His brain tells him something like "what the hell are you doing alone! Cry for someone to come, you're in danger!" And that's what he does.
When a baby is close to his mother and father, the temperature is more regular, hormonal levels are more stable, heart rate and breathing are stabilized (they say that when they hear the parents' deep breath, they also breathe better) Y immune system and enzyme production work better (regulate many of the body's processes). Perhaps this is the reason that children who spend more time in contact with parents, such as premature babies we have talked about, are in better health, are less sick and have better weight gain.
Collecting with babies makes them cry less
Everything is related, but it must be said to leave us nothing. When we sleep with them, we remove reasons for them to cry, because they no longer have to call us, because we are at their side. In the same way, when they are hungry, Mom is available there to offer them the breast right away and many babies do not even start to cry, because they are immediately taken to the breast. If they do not breastfeed, for a matter of closeness, parents realize before they want to eat or complain about something and attend to them sooner.
Children who sleep with their parents eat more
As we said not long ago, babies who sleep with parents take longer breastfeeding. We do not know if it is a direct relationship or if it is the opposite: babies who breastfeed longer, sleep with parents. Perhaps they are simply two events that feed back and the two are a consequence of each other. In any case, the reality is that they are babies who drink more breast milk over time and, in addition, they make more night shots, being the mother always close, and this is beneficial for the baby. It is true that they are more awakening, but it is also true that breastfed babies fall asleep before.
Colecho helps babies rest better
Because they have food nearby, how they synchronize their breathing with that of parents and how they feel safe, because their caregivers are closer impossible, babies who collect with parents sleep better. This means that they rest better, for the day they have more energy, they are more active and consequently they develop better.
Sleeping with the baby is beneficial for parents
Not only does the baby benefit from contact with parents, but also parents to be with the baby, by a logical equation: if the baby sleeps better, the parents also sleep better. It is not the same to have to take the child from the bassinet to breastfeed him than to have him at his side, which the mother can offer almost at the first groan.
It is shown that The shorter the awakening, the easier it is to go back to sleep, and this happens with babies (the longer it takes to take care of him, the more he cries and the longer it takes to calm down) and also with the parents, so it is much better to have him close than not in the crib or in another room, as many recommend sleep professionals, who simply manage to make the mother go through the corridor at the second or third awakening, groping side and side so as not to hit the walls. Something very absurd that mothers end up doing for the recommendations of people who know very little about babies, apparently.
But is it not dangerous?
Many studies establish a relationship between colecho and sudden death and that is why the recommendations are different according to the professional who attends to us: "Do not sleep with your baby", "Sleep with your baby", "Do not sleep with him ever", "Sleep with him but only if you don't drink alcohol "," Don't sleep with him if it's on a couch ", and so people in the end don't know what to do anymore, because while they read these recommendations and try to follow them Babies keep crying because they want and need their mother next door, and even more if they are breastfeeding.
In 2014, the Spanish Association of Pediatrics published consensus recommendations in this regard in which they said the following:
The safest way to sleep for infants under six months is in their crib, face up, near their parents' bed. There is scientific evidence that this practice decreases the risk of SIDS by more than 50%.
And then I confronted these data with the need to be breastfed on demand and then they told us this:
Breastfeeding has a protective effect against SIDS and, on the other hand, colecho is a beneficial practice for the maintenance of breastfeeding, but it is also considered a factor that increases the risk of SIDS so it should not be recommended in :
- Infants under three months of age.
- Prematurity and low birth weight.
- Parents who use tobacco, alcohol, drugs or sedative drugs.
- Sickness situations, especially extreme fatigue, such as immediate postpartum.
- Colecho on soft surfaces, water mattresses, sofa or armchairs.
- Share the bed with other family members, with other children or with multiple people.
In September of the same year, a review of studies was published in which the data of 400 children who suffered sudden death were analyzed, comparing them with 1386 live children as a control sample. They saw that at the time of death 36% of children in the SMSL group were sleeping with parents, compared to 15% of those in the control group. With these data, we might think that colecho is a risk factor for sudden death, but when you look closely, you can see that:
- The odds of SIDS in babies sleeping with their parents on a sofa or next to a parent who consumed more than two units of alcohol were much (but much) higher than in cases where this did not happen (Odds Ratio of 18.3, when an Odds Ratio of 1 would say that the risk does not increase or decrease, which is the same).
- If they slept next to someone who smoked and had less than 3 months the chances of SIDS were also higher (OR of 8.9), although that risk was much lower in those older than 3 months (OR of 1.4).
- If the parents slept with the baby in the absence of these practices the risk of sudden death was not greater than those who slept in their crib (OR of 1.1, which is considered not significant), although this would have to be divided by age: children under 3 months were somewhat more at risk (OR of 1.6) and those older than 3 months much less (OR of 0.1), confirming that after 3 months the colecho is a highly recommended practice.
- The use of the pacifier was a protector against sudden death only in babies who slept with their parents, and sleeping in a prone position (face down) was only more dangerous if babies slept alone.
In other words: collecting if you drink alcohol is very dangerous, a practice totally discouraged. Sleeping with a baby on a sofa is very dangerous, a practice that parents should not do. Sleep with a baby if one of the parents is a smoker it is dangerous until he turns 3 months old, and consequently the smoker should quit or sleep in another room. Sleeping with a baby for more than three months, if you do not drink alcohol or use other drugs and if you sleep in a bed following the usual safety measures for the colecho, it makes your baby have much less likely to suffer sudden death If he sleeps apart from the parents.
That is, the colecho protects against sudden death if done safely, but it can be very dangerous if done wrong. In fact, it is likely to be safe even from birth, if it is done safely (as UNICEF points out in its latest report).
So as it is usually said: your nights are yours. Do what you want because once the house door is closed nobody knows or has to know what is going on inside, whatever the final decision. For my part I have it clear, sleeping with children is the best for them and for parents and in the end it becomes something as natural and normal as getting in an elevator together or going together in a car. Doesn't it make much sense to make it separate? Well, for me, I've been schooling with children for eight years, it seems comparable.
Photos | Thinkstock
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