Benefits and Harms Associated With the Practice of Bed Sharing

Abstract

Fortyobservationalstudiesmetourin-clusion criteria. Evidence consistently suggests that theremaybeanassociationbetweenbedsharingandsuddenin-fantdeathsyndrome(SIDS)amongsmokers(howeverde-fined), but the evidence is not as consistent among non-smokers.Thisdoesnotmeanthatnoassociationbetweenbed sharing and SIDS exists among nonsmokers, but thatexisting data do not convincingly establish such an asso-ciation. Data also suggest that bed sharing may be morestrongly associated with SIDS in younger infants. A posi-tiveassociationbetweenbedsharingandbreastfeedingwasidentified.Currentdatacouldnotestablishcausality.Itispossible that women who are most likely to practice pro-longed breastfeeding also prefer to bed share.