I work in a hospital and I think that’s ridiculous. It’s your baby! If you want the baby in bed with you then that’s where the baby should be!!

I was lucky at my hospital, when the midwife saw me sleeping with my son on my chest, she told me I was doing what would make him the most comfortable considering he had just spent nine months inside of me.

I got the NUM first thing in the morning. She was just as upset as I was.

I had my first (through third) c-section and they told me I couldn’t have him with me the first night the epi was in incase something happened, or I dropped him. That was back in the times when they weren’t private rooms and my dh couldn’t stay with me. They said if he’d stayed there then the baby could have stayed with me. Had my 4th by vbaccc. looking to have my 5th at home.

My thoughts exactly.

That exactly what I would tell them.

Kim, this is a late reply but……a lot of OB nurses do not understand mother’s instinct.

I’ve fallen asleep with my two youngsters when they were infants. They’re grown now, but I remember falling asleep after the peace of nursing like it was yesterday. how I love being a mother!

like!

The “keep your mouth shut” point is especially good. Hey doc. Can it. And quit with the crazy rushing around at the last minute before birth. It’s distracting and annoying.
Shut.
Up.
And hospital staff thinks that the patients are their property because they have protocol that supports that idea. Why? Because the state wants to separate moms and babies. Because babies belong to Uncle Sam. That way there is dissociation from the get-go -not to mention genital mutilation. It’s so that baby will grow up to be a soldier or to make soldier babies.
Completely sickening.

I don’t co-sleep just because I never got any sleep–I turned into a zombie because every time baby twitched, I jerked awake (and now, at 9, he’s even more of a flopper, lol). But I absolutely respect a parent’s right to choose their sleeping method.

I like the way you put things–how you would address a parent; it was considerate and explained the limitations of the hospital in a clear way. And your advice about having a homebirth makes perfect sense. But what was said to the OP, how it was said, was totally inappropriate. I would have felt very threatened if someone had said that to me…While I probably wouldn’t have given the nurse a hard time per se, I would have let her know that I didn’t appreciate her words.

well put. Thank you

Our hospital had no problems with co-sleeping, and in fact, the OB who did our tour of the post-partum wing actually suggested co-sleeping when someone asked, “Where will the baby sleep?” The person went on to ask, “…but won’t the baby fall out of the bed?” and the OB’s response was, “It turns out that that doesn’t actually happen.” It sounds like you’ve had a different experience, especially with meds involved, but I guess this OB’s experience was more positive.

Not only that, but my hospital bed was not overly narrow, had a great rail on the side, and a pillow nestled nicely between the rail and the mattress to fill any gaps, so I was quite sure that the baby wasn’t going anywhere (not that she would have anyway…she couldn’t roll over yet). I felt completely comfortable co-sleeping in that environment, and the staff said not a word on the topic.

Then again, I’m not entirely sure that the staff even knew that we were co-sleeping, because they mostly left us to our own devices, and certainly didn’t come into our room during the middle of the night.

I appreciate your input. I wonder if it would be possible to get changes made to where an LD nurse could say, “Co-sleeping can be dangerous in this type of bed/environment. We ask that you lay your bed flat and fill any gaps with rolled linens/pillows.” Like a previous poster, I have never been able to sleep well with my baby in the bed (or even the room!) but those first few nights, that was the only way I could get him to sleep (especially after a c/s where you can’t physically rock/walk them to sleep). It seems like there could be a compromise made that makes both sides happy.

Cheers Kathleen.
I appreciate your input. This is my submission, and the full context is down below. I had been given permission by my Ob to co-sleep due to constant feeding requirements and me being very weak. He had even written it in the notes, and I had seen it, the day nurse had seen it, and the NUM had seen it. This woman just wanted to play Vigilante. I see the same thing with some of my palliative patients. Doc says they can have a beer after dinner, but some nurses refuse to let them because “you shouldnt be drinking in hospital or on medication” yet the doc has written his OK for it in the notes, and is well aware of the risks.

I hate to point it out once again, but NOT every woman has the option to “just give birth somewhere else” if we don’t like it. Women in the military, or in prison, or other extreme circumstances, don’t get a choice. It’s the hospital, risk medical discharge on charges of malingering, or nothing. I appreciate the input from “the other side,” but not every woman has it that easily.

I kind of agree – maybe after a vaginal birth it would be okay, but you are compromised on several levels with a major incision plus pain meds. Co-sleeping advocates always say that if you’re going to do so, you should not be under the influence of drugs/alcohol in your own home, and this should probably extend to the hospital. Once that Percocet reached my bloodstream, all bets on lucidity were off … LOL

But that would imply that you can actually “sleep” in a hospital. For me, at least, there was nothing like a strange bed and being placed on the end of a hall to keep me awake for the duration!

Look, i didn’t want to give birth at the hospital, I got transported so don’t you DARE tell me not to give birth there if I don’t want to follow policy. I am not STUPID, I knew how to make sure my child was safe. In fact, I didn’t even care if he slept IN my bed, i just wanted him in the room and was told that was a no-no, because what if he choked or something? I said, if I had a vaginal birth I would be AT HOME RIGHT NOW and then what I would do without you to “save me?”

I can completely understand what your saying,, hospital beds definitely aren’t the safest place to be co sleeping. When you go home , you can do whatever you want,, but while in hospital it’s better to have the baby where it’ll be safe.. I had 2 homebirths and co slept with both in my bed, so I am an advocate for co sleeping. I chose hb and therefore didn’t have to deal with that issue of hospital rules.

I’m all for SAFE co-sleeping. Thats the #1 rule of co-sleeping. And as PRO-cosleeping I am, I dont think the hospital bed is the place for SAFE co-sleeping. There are SO many factors including small unfamiliar bed, narcotics if used, and exhaustion being just a few of them. It’s ok to want to co-sleep, but in your own SAFE bed at home is probably a better place. My hospital I delivered at was non-cosleeping. If I wanted to do that bad enough, I would have pursed a home birth.

You are the nurse I wish had taken care of me after all of my (necessary, but still ugh) C-sections. <3 Love your compassion, empathy, professionalism.

Kathleen, thats a lovely way to put it
Our local hospital encourages co-sleeping, but they have rails on the beds that they put up and get the mum to sleep on one side of the narrow bed, then jam a pillow against the rails, they then teach you how to lay so you wont/have a less chanse of rolling on the baby if feeding laying on your side. The night nurse who taught me this is absolutely amazing

aarr, doc, could you please post some links for your research that support that statement. Give me a half hour and I’ll put some up (or someone more on the ball then me will) that say the opposite, co sleeping helps reduce the risk of SIDS.
FYI – I am with Toni (above) on this one. After a C/S it is so painful to move much less maneuver yourself out of bed and pick up a baby out of a bassinet. On chance I could roll over and squash DS in my sleep because everytime I moved I woke up with shooting pains everywhere. Yes, he slept with me, for both our sakes

Plenty of babies have died from SIDS in a crib too.

In fact it is most co-sleepers’ opinions that their babies are less-likely to die of SIDS when next to their mothers for the simple reason that nursing mothers are hyper-aware of their babies. My husband can turn the radio on full blast in the middle of the night and not wake me up but if my daughter so much as sighs, I’m awake.

Hey doc, what about napping (not like you get a good night’s sleep in the hospital anyway) with the baby on your chest? Both bro and sis-in-law did this with the last two and it seemed perfectly safe. I totally understand the fact that hospital beds are FAR from ideal for cosleeping in the “normal” way with baby next to you but it seems like it’s pretty safe to have baby on your chest.

Thoughts?

“I know you all hate it when I just jump into one comment, but -”

Then why do it? If you know that we don’t appreciate it then what’s the point – you’re own entertainment? A need to feel right?

Do you honestly think that we haven’t heard that same opinion in a million different places? Do you think that you’re somehow the first person to (gasp) pronounce us cosleepers as putting our children at risk? We could argue with you about it until we’re blue in the face and post our own differing statistics but it never means squat to you. Perhaps that’s why we don’t like it when you pop in.

Dr. Fogelson, I would be particularly interested in your thoughts on an earlier post this week–where a doctor deliberately hurt a 16-year old mother during birth.

Even Dr. Sears co-slept: http://www.askdrsears.com/html/7/t071000.asp

And he says it’s not a risk factor for SIDS: http://www.parenting.com/article/Baby/Health/Ask-Dr-Sears-Co-Sleeping-a-SIDS-Danger

A baby being smothered is NOT SIDS. In SIDS the cause of death is not known/baby is sleeping and just stops breathing, a huge difference between that and suffocation. There is research that has found that sleeping with your baby actually helps them regulate their breathing and their heart rate, reducing the likeliness of SIDS, particularly when the mother is breastfeeding.

Honestly the connection at night between a breastfeeding mother and her baby is something you could never understand without experiencing, but believe me a mother is more aware of her baby than anything else in the world, and they even wake up before the baby does, sensing that they are about to wake up.

It’s only dangerous when the people sleeping with baby are using sleeping medications, or drugs, or if you’re sleeping on the couch or in a chair. I have heard so many mothers tell me they’ve fallen asleep with their baby in the chair or on the couch because they are afraid to sleep with them. Essentially by creating this fear of sleeping with your baby is causing more suffocation deaths because of moms falling asleep on the couch/chair with the baby.

If a baby is smothered, it died from being smothered NOT from SIDS. Seriously. Also, this implies that no baby ever dies alone in a ‘safe’ crib, which is an insane notion.

Cosleeping is an exceptionally safe way of sleeping, with a few precautions it’s safer than letting an infant lie alone in a crib, with no one near to help if it needs it.

Perhaps no one likes when you chime in because your opinions are clearly biased and disdainful of those of us who choose other than the established, mainstream method. A method which has numerous faults and dicey ‘science’ to back it up. :/

I’m interested to hear your opinion on the above as well.

First of all, smothering is not SIDS. It is suffocation.

Second, you will find two types of research on this matter. The majority does not control for such contraindications of sleep-sharing as mind-altering substance use, smoking, and severe obesity. The second (and best available) body of research actually involved observing parents in the act of sleep sharing. Click around here for information: http://www.nd.edu/~jmckenn1/lab/ References are here: http://www.nd.edu/~jmckenn1/lab/pubs.html

And finally….access to a woman’s baby is a right and not a privilege. This nurse had no right to punish the mother for her parenting choices.

I actually don’t mind you visiting here, by the way, as long as you’re carrying away some new knowledge and insights.

I know enough not to roll off the bed in the middle of the night, what makes you think I’d roll on my baby?

As a mom who has lost a baby to SIDS, I find your statement irresponsible. SIDS is NOT caused by parents rolling over on baby or by baby being smothered in any other manner. If you know what killed the baby, then it is not SIDS. My Katie died for no apparent reason. That is SIDS, that is why there is research to find the cause and hopeully a cure for SIDS.

And yet there is a baby friendly hospital in New Hampshire that has every baby co-bed with their mothers. Not a single sids death and not one baby has fallen out of bed. Co sleeping should be encouraged for ALL babies and mothers (IE baby sleeping near mother in the same room… same thing as rooming in) and co bedding for families comfortable with such arrangements. The single biggest risk factor for SIDS is breastfeeding, so as long as the mother isn’t giving formula it’s a safe bedding arrangement.

Nicholas, you have seriously stuck your foot in your mouth. SIDS is an unknown cause, with links to being APART from Mum while sleeping, as well as smoking, bottle feeding etc. SMOTHERING is a KNOWN cause.

Dude, you really need to familiarize yourself with the work of Dr. McKenna.

http://www.naturalchild.org/james_mckenna/#1273778205

Then explain how Japan had, for several years, the lowest SIDS rate in the world and they have NEVER used cribs. “Baby sleeps between the parents as the river is protected by the mountains.” SIDS used to be called “crib death” and by percentages, more babies die from SIDS in the crib than with responsible parents who deliberately and safely bed share with their babies.

The studies that showed bed sharing not being safe included cosleeping on couches and chairs (known safety risks) and ‘accidental’ cosleeping where parents fell asleep, exhausted, without meaning to and without making their sleeping area safe for baby, because they’d been told by people like you and that stupid flawed study, that it wasn’t ever safe to share sleep with baby and the idiotic modern practice of going from room to room every night has made them so tired that they aren’t safe to care for an infant, much less sleep with them.

Not that sidecarring the crib isn’t great for families who want separate sleep space and definitely should be recommended to parents who just don’t want to cosleep or are afraid to–that is applaudable that you did mention that–but parents who are safe, responsible cosleepers should not be discouraged from safely sharing sleep with their babies.

And, of course, I’m sure someone pointed out that smothering/suffocation is not SIDS. It’s no different in outcome and it’s no less tragic, but SIDS almost always occurs in cribs, typically in babies that have been formula fed and in homes where the parent(s) smoke(s).

Dr Fogelson, I understand what you’re saying, though I think a distinction needs to be made between safe and unsafe co-sleeping. If the mother is under the influence, if either parent smokes, if there are lots of heavy blankets, if there are gaps where the baby can get caught and/or fall, and/or the mother isn’t breastfeeding, then co-sleeping isn’t a good idea. From what I’ve read, a mother should only co-sleep if she’s breastfeeding and following the other safe co-sleeping guidelines. The position a mother puts herself in when breastfeeding in bed, with her legs drawn up under the baby, and her arm above the top of the baby’s head (and used as a pillow for the mum), makes it nearly impossible to roll onto the baby. I know another mentioned Dr McKenna’s research, but I’d echo that. I personally wish that parents were given info about safe co-sleeping instead of just being told it’s dangerous; after all, we’re given info about safe cot sleeping – we should know all the options. The hospitals here who are trying to gain UNICEF Baby Friendly status will have to start teaching about and supporting safe co-sleeping, so I do think that will help to get more of the medical professionals here on board with that. My Health Visitor even admitted that in places where co-sleeping is the norm (such as China), SIDS doesn’t seem to be a big problem. Anyway, I’m rambling now – the time change has confused my body.

Dr. Fogelson.

I appreciate that you are here, listening to us. Many of us gravitate here because we have experienced some of the worst behavior in your profession – and being more aware of how words impact the doctor/patient relationship can truly enhance your practice.

In my case, there would easily be over a dozen quotes that belong on this site. These come from four different practitioners (one of whom later lost her license for abusing patients). I was one of those patients – though I never filed any grievance. I was coerced into an unecessary c-section and treated pretty badly at the hospital.

There is also a fairly well-read contingent on this website. There are many other health professionals contributing as well as lay-people that are well-informed. I am not a health professional – but am a PhD biologist with special training in statistics. Be careful not to dismiss our sophistication, and we will respect yours.

More to this particular topic. I strongly urge you to look at some of the data compiled by McKenna on co-sleeping and some of the international data. The data on co-sleeping and suffocation as compared to SIDS are complex. There are apparently discrepancies in how different professionals use terminology. I understand that SIDS is for unexplained deaths and that cosleeping infants that die are usually thought to be from suffocation (overlying).

I happened to co-sleep with all of my children – and was instantly aware of their every movement and breath. It also allowed a working mom to successfully breastfeed until child-led weaning, where if I’d been up to feed my child – I would have stopped in less than a month. Having had the c-section – I see both that it was impossible for me to get up and get my child to feed him; and that the hospital beds are a bit precarious for cosleeping. My other two were born safely at home, attended by a midwife.

Dr. Fogelson. I like you — I really do. You don’t work in the most progressive state in the Union, and I am really happy to hear you have allowed the natural birth community to teach you something. It speaks volumes for your open-mindedness and lack of elitism.

And it’s a bit of a salve (to me a least) for some battle scars I’ve accrued with another online OB.

So, cheers to you. Sincerely.

But really — what were expecting when you flew in and dropped ‘cosleeping is unsafe!’Come on. You *knew* how that comment would be received.

As much as I like you, I have trouble with the way that you never come on this website but to defend another medical professional and/or criticize a mother’s understanding. I know you’ve said that it’s because you’re not aggressive by nature, but it seems like (and I don’t believe this is the case) you’ve simply never read a comment on here, given to mother at a vulnerable time, that you consider indefensible.

I call bullsh*t.

1) Co-sleeping, provided the parents sleep in a real bed rather than a waterbed, a memory foam contraption, a raft of multitudinous pillows and soft blankets, or a couch, is perfectly safe. Apparently you are not familiar with the research of Dr James McKenna, an expert in maternal bonding and infant sleep. Or Dr William Sears, a pediatrician and expert on attachment parenting. Or various anthropologists and primatologists who have noticed no soaring rate of SIDS in cultures where co-sleeping is common, such as Japan, which interestingly has one of the lowest rates of maternal AND neonatal mortality in the world.

Breastfeeding appears to be a critical factor (Dr McKenna’s research showed no cases of SIDS in babies who slept with their mothers who were exclusively breastfed). Also extremely important appears to be not being a smoker, and not being rendered unconscious by drugs including alcohol (the parents, not the baby, obviously, as babies don’t smoke or drink).

Anyone who can learn to not roll over on a cat or dog while sleeping can learn to not overlay a baby. Instincts work. Mothers have even been filmed making their arms into roll cages for their babies while they sleep.

2) Guess what SIDS used to be called before a lobby of baby gear manufacturers got together and pushed for a change? “Crib death” or “cot death.”

You know, 90% of SIDS happens in an infants own bed (funny that since it’s also known as “cot death”) of the 10% that also includes car seats, bouncers, asleep on someone’s shoulder(yeah, I know someone that happened to, they picked their baby up, carried them downstairs and baby was dead) on a changing mat (yeah, know that one too, mother watched in horror as her baby died whilst she was changing the nappy), on the sofa and anywhere else that’s not in their bed.

Babies that die in their parents bed are more likely to be formula fed. Fox News did an article on SIDS and a doctor suggested they looked into how many were formula fed, they couldn’t find a breastfed SIDS in the last 3 years.

Babies are twice as likely to die in a different room to the parents.

SIDS doesn’t have a cause, if it’s going to happen it will happen anywhere. As a mother who held my child through her every moment until she died in my arms, I can tell you that if my child was going to die, I’d rather be holding them in their last moment.

Having an infant sleep in the bed with parents has been implicated as a cause of SIDs due to inadvertent smothering of the infant.

Aren’t SIDS and “smothering” two completely different things?

Hey bro?
Shut.
Up.
Thxbai!

God, can you BELIEVE these self-important MEN who presume to tell women how childbirth should be. This world used to be a matriarchy, where the chief healers were women. For a REASON. That MD doesn’t mean jack shit to me or anyone else with half a brain. This guy wasted his whole life in “school” and paid big bucks for the privilege of becoming a drone for Uncle Sam, following his protocol to create separation between moms and newborns. Fuck him sideways for sure.

Also, very nice blaming smothering on mom as accidental. What about when dad smothers the baby out of jealousy or whathaveyou and mom finds the dead child thinking it’s SIDS? Yeah that happens WAAAAAAY more often.

Hello two years later. I just have to say that I’m pretty sure my son would be dead if I didn’t co sleep! For the first few weeks he would spit up and aspirated several times a night to which I had to immediately suction his nose and mouth and sometimes flip him upside down. I am terrified of putting him in a bed by himself because I would have no idea if he’s ok. The idea of smothering is so far out there! My husband could be shaking the bed snoring and in out cold but if my son wiggles his toes it wakes me up! I exclusively breast feed so feeding during the night is so conveniant when he is right next to me.

^^ awesome point^^
Those wheeled bassinets are death traps.

This is a good point. It was a few days before anyone in the hospital would let me hold the baby without help after my surgery. And it was days before I was allowed to get out of bed (even though I felt like I could) to be able to walk over to a bassinet. If she hadn’t slept in my arms she wouldn’t have had anything to eat. The nurses were just to busy to remember to bring her too me or to respond to my call when other Mommies were busy in labor.

Yep thats exactly why we coslept!

I had a very similar experience with one of my kids. It might have been section #2 – where I was allowed up & about much earlier than the first time. And I guess b/c of some other factors I was ABLE to get up much earlier than before.

Anywho, being able to get up did not mean I was Speedy Gonzalez. It still took time, and patience, and it involved a great deal of pain. I was on Ibuprofen only…Once I almost DID drop my baby off the bed, b/c a nurse came in, screeched at me, while I was sleeping, and it startled me awake enough that both the baby and I came off the bed a good few inches, and THAT started her slide to the floor. But I had my hands on her and was able to grip her a little better. If the nurse had woken me gently or Hell, not woken me up AT ALL (I still don’t think she ever gave me a reason why she was in the room, I hadn’t been alone very long), I would never have come CLOSE to letting her slide away.

In the WHEELED, plastic bassinet, my daughter started to fuss quite a bit, then threw up. I was combo feeding breastmilk/formula (well, technically colostrum, my milk wouldn’t come in for another 4 days). This was shortly after a formula feeding. I had not been mobile for very long, my husband had stepped out of the room to get something from the car downstairs, and my call button had been knocked to the floor when I tried to sit my bed up a little.

Since the baby was swaddled up, I ended up being able to pull the bassinet to me a little, tip it up, and when she started to roll, I grabbed the front of the swaddle and took care of her. It was a pretty horrendous 30-45 seconds. Not long, but enough for me to freak out!

This was my experience exactly. And I had a terrible hospital experience after my cesarean, but one thing I didn’t have an issue with was co-sleeping. No one said a word about my baby sleeping in my arms in the hospital. No one rolled over or fell off. I can’t even see how that would have happened.

I wasnt able to, I still needed another 36 hours of bloodwork and medications adjusted.

“THIS is one of the main reasons why I give birth at home.”

I know, right? If Big Medicine is sooooo adamant that women not choose home birth, it may behoove this establishment to WOO us back into the hospital with more humane, respectful, and (gasp!) evidence-based treatment. For the time being, however, they’re trying another strategy: Squash the competition by prosecuting midwives and forcing women into hospitals. Sigh!

Ftr, (since the implication is that ‘I’ attacked in a personal manner, which is confusing to me…) I did not ‘attack’ so much as take issue with a statement that is clearly false. I’m very grateful if your perspective has changed and you are able to see things from outside the usual medical mindset. However, I will always take issue with statements like the one I quoted above. It’s not personal. I’m sorry if you thought so. :/

Thank you for sticking around and learning more. Just one point, you are in a community of very educated women, who have often been traumatized by your peers. Might I just suggest that given that you are putting MD in your name that if you are stating fact you might like to support that with research so we can all learn.

The only problem I have is with misinformation, wherever it comes from. I think you stepped on some toes with your assertion that co-sleeping is not safe because of links to SIDS and lumping suffocation into the category of SIDS-related deaths, when the fact is they’re not the same.

Really, though, you ought to familiarize yourself with Dr. James McKenna. And ask yourself how we survived this long if co-sleeping is so dangerous. Remember, in terms of history, both recent and prehistoric, and in terms of a lot of modern populations, having your infant sleep far from you would be considered unusual and even dangerous.

Thank you so much for being invested in dialogue with patients with the intention of giving the best care possible! Being so open to criticism and suggestion, especially in an area of personal expertise, is something that is very difficult for even the most humble.

How do you have time for a practice when you’re on blogs all day spewing misinformation?

I’ve read your blog. You were amazed that episiotomies not only weren’t necessary, but that the medical community knew it and chose not to belive it or act on it. I was amazed that you consider yourself cutting-edge even though you obviously aren’t very good at the old cause and effect, scientific method thing. You definately have the personality of a follower rather than a leader. You are not one of the few doctors supporting natural childbirth, although you may be one of the few medical school professors who are. Thus explainng why the quality of OB is lagging with each graduating class since the invention of the fetal monitor.

Honestly, I like to see you pop up. I like reading your input. I’m not going to beat the SIDS horse to death any longer. The issue many people have with this comment is the *way* it was said. The nurse threating to remove the woman’s child from her posession for not following the *rules*. I understand that hospitals have rules in place for a reason, but to tell a woman that she doesn’t have any control over her family simply because she’s in the hospital doesn’t exactly curry favor.

Had a nurse approached me in the manner of Kathleen H. (above), I probably would have been understanding or at least attempted to work out some middle ground. Had I been approached in the manner of the nurse in the original quote, you bet there would have been hell! I would have held onto my baby, refusing to give it up, and should anyone have attempted to wrest the baby from my grasp I would have been shouting assault and battery. I would also be demanding AMA papers because I refuse to let people treat me that way.

Thank you for clarifying your intentions, Dr. Fogelson.

You know, there’s a town in Montana, Butte, that is more Irish-Catholic-American than even Boston. (Hear me out. I’m going somewhere with this). St. Patrick’s Day is a huge to-do there, and the town becomes a Mecca for obstreperous drunken college students. Well, for many years, Butte had a colorful character who donned an orange tie to the bars every St. Paddy’s Day. (He may still be around. I haven’t been back for awhile). He did it just for the thrill of starting brawls.

Seeing as you knowingly had no prayer of coming on to this site to win converts to the anti-cosleeping cause, I hope you took the time to remove your orange tie first.

The fact that the end result can look similar is undoubtedly why the “differential diagnosis” (i.e. DiffDx) for SIDS that was quoted by Dr.(?) Fogelson was “Involuntary smothering by exhausted mother who ‘co-sleeps’ with infant” — a differential diagnosis can be (and I assume is, in this case), a list of other conditions that can have similar symptoms.

A qualified coroner can tell the difference between unexplained death and asphyxiation. There are certain markers, or qualities, the lungs, throat, and even eyes display when asphyxiation occurs.

LOL Oops this was meant to be a reply to Mama up higher where she replied about birthing choices and mentioned prison and military!

Which means that any mother who wants do be able do ‘whatever’ she wants needs to be lucky enough to be low-risk?

Personally, if you’ve written special instructions for one of your patients, do you expect them to be followed when you’re not around?

I do have to ask why I’ve received conflicting information from different nurses. Both stated their information as “hospital policy,” but both stated completely opposite viewpoints.

What it’s *worth*, bro, is exactly fuck-all. You know, this is kind of a women’s space for ladies to tell their stories. And you are invading because you just HAVE to penetrate like a typical BRO. Isn’t that what you’re doing when you shove your fingers up ladies to “check their dilation” (shudder) when you can damn well see completion by palpating and taking note of the mother’s urges/behavior?

Way to try make this about you and your edumakation…which clearly sucked.
You are making our case for us.

My daughter was the same, I could have written that post. Every time she was put down she cried for a feed. She’d happily sleep on me (with bad PGP and post section I could only sleep on my back) but would wake the moment she was put down. Because of how bad I was I had to get someone else to pass her to me.

Me, too! The night nurse I had both nights with my most recent child was awesome like that.

I’m suprized Wampa can walk with that kind of chip on her shoulder.