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Wanganui mayor Michael Laws has joined the debate about parents sharing beds with babies, calling a warning by the Whanganui District Health Board "little more than politically correct nonsense".
A media release from the health board yesterday warned against parents sharing beds with children if they had been drinking, taking drugs or certain medicines or were excessively tired, or if the mother smoked during pregnancy.
Child and youth mortality review committee chairman Dr Nick Baker said there was a 10-fold increase in the risk of cot death or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (Sids) in infants under 3 months of age sharing their parents' bed, even in infants whose parents did not smoke, drink or take drugs.
Mr Laws, a member of the health board, dissociated himself from the media release, and said it flew in the face of different cultures and sought to stop bonding between mother and child.
"This is flim-flam aimed at a tiny minority of parents who engage in risky and anti-social activities.
"Because some of them - drugged and/or drunk - suffocate their children by rolling on them while asleep - and no one can bring themselves to admit such ... the advice is then given to all mums and parents to desist. It is a nonsense."
Mr Laws equated the advice to the drinking-while-pregnant issue. "The occasional glass of wine with your meal will not harm your unborn child. So it is with bedsharing. It is a practice that has not killed kids for centuries.
"But health authorities are seeking to scare all mums and parents with this alarmist gibberish."
In the board's media release, Wanganui paediatrician Dr David Montgomery said the city had the highest death rate in the country of infants between the ages of 4 weeks and 1 year, and advice on how to prevent cot death should not be ignored.
Wanganui mothers and groups including the La Leche League have challenged the advice about bedsharing.
Wellington coroner Garry Evans, giving his preliminary findings into the deaths of four babies, said parents sharing beds with babies would figure in his findings to be issued next year.
Following Mr Evans' inquest, Plunket released a list of ways parents could protect their babies from Sids.
The organisation said if parents insisted on having their babies in their bed, they should ensure the adults had not been using alcohol or drugs and were not particularly tired, there was no bedding covering the baby's face and it could not be wedged between or under others.
"The risks of bedsharing are greater for premature and low birth weight babies and those who have been exposed to smoke," Plunket said.
Auckland University professor of child health research Ed Mitchell said bedsharing absolutely increased risk of babies dying from Sids.
He said the message to not share beds was included in advice to parents on the Ministry of Health website, but the message was being delivered inconsistently.
A number of breastfeeding advocates ... were recommending bedsharing to improve breastfeeding rates."
- NZPA
