Does an Advertisement Showing a Bab

Does an Advertisement Showing a Baby Sleeping with a Knife go too Far?

4 YEARS AGO by CAITLYN OBOLSKY, ESQ.
Posted In: General
Milwaukee has been experienced an epidemic of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), and the local officials are taking aim at the practice of co-sleeping: where infants sleep in the "family bed" with their parents. Articles are cropping up detailing the reaction. Cosleeping, like many parenting decisions, has always been a controversial practice in the U.S., eventhough it is common place in other countries.



This article declares outrage at the fact that the campaign does nothing to discuss the fact that co-sleeping can be done safely, and that there are certain rules that should be followed. It also makes reference to the claim that co-sleeping results in lowers SIDS rates than crib incidents. Dr. Sears even chimed in on his support for co-sleeping.

Advocates for co-sleeping claim that the practice actually results in lower rates of infant mortality, due to a more acute awareness of the child's breathing patterns out of mere proximity, and also because of the documented physiological benefits of the child being better able to regulate its own heart rate.

I remember reading an article recently which stated that SIDS is no longer really a reason for infant mortality, especially due to the "Back to Sleep" campaign, but rather other things such as blankets or other things placed in the crib, or other complications arise which result in suffocation, are the real reason for such upsetting incidents, and SIDS is more of a euphemism. Some of the articles above even suggest that officials consider babies sleeping alone in an adult bed, during the day for example, as co-sleeping, which can be misleading.

What do you think of these images? Are they achieving the goal of educating parents, or are the images merely fear mongering?