Research In Brief: Bedside Manner
A first-of-its-kind survey found that mother-infant bedsharing is common among breastfeeding physicians. Bedsharing practices among physicians had not previously been measured. Those who bedshared did so primarily to facilitate breastfeeding and improve sleep quality. Bedsharing doctors breastfed for an average of four months longer than those who did not bedshare.
The survey, adapted from the CDC's Infant Feeding Practices Survey and the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Survey, targeted breastfeeding physicians or medical students who had given birth to a singleton infant. An online questionnaire of 546 physicians showed that 68 percent reported bedsharing.
Bedsharing was associated with a greater than 40 percent decrease in the hazard ratio for breastfeeding cessation. On average, bedsharing doctors breastfed longer than those who did not bedshare, 18 months versus 14 months. Longer breastfeeding duration has been linked to reduced risk of infections, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and childhood leukemia in children, and reduced risk of maternal cancers and cardiovascular disease.
Significantly, more than half of those who bedshared (52 percent) did not disclose it to their child’s health care provider. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) discourages bedsharing in all circumstances, including for breastfeeding mothers.
“Our study has important ramifications because nearly 80 percent of respondents were doctors whose job includes counseling parents about safe sleep,” said Melissa Bartick, MD, MS, MPH, FABM. “The fact that most participants did not adhere to current US sleep recommendations suggests these recommendations are not realistic, likely because current US recommendations do not account for normal mother-infant sleep physiology.”
Safety concerns were the primary reason for not bedsharing for more than 90 percent of study participants who did not bedshare, thus following AAP guidelines. The AAP advises against bedsharing due to concerns that it may increase the risk of sleep-related infant death; however, no clear evidence exists that routine bed sharing itself causes sleep related death in the absence of other hazards—such as sleeping with a smoker, sharing a bed with a parent impaired by drugs or alcohol, sofa sharing, or sleeping with a preterm infant. Most risk factors are modifiable. Moreover, parents have unintentionally fallen asleep with their infants in unsafe locations such as sofas or chairs in well-intentioned efforts to avoid bedsharing. Other countries such as the United Kingdom have modified their safe sleep guidelines to allow for safe bedsharing.
Read the full paper in PLoS ONE
BIDLH Study Authors: Melissa Bartick, MD, MS, FABM
COI: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Citation: Louis-Jacques AF, Bartick M, Awomolo A, Zhang J, Feldman-Winter L, Leonard SA, et al. (2024) Bedsharing among breastfeeding physicians: Results of a nationwide survey. PLoS ONE 19(8): e0305625.
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