The requested URL /forums/index.php?/topic/800001-are-moses-basketsbassinets-safe/ was not found on this server.Putting your newborn baby to sleep in a box might seem like a strange idea at first glance. But of course, little ones haven’t always had the luxury of beautiful wooden cribs with matching accessories. My own dad, born during the depression in Canada, was bedded down for the night in a bottom drawer. Now a new scheme, about to be piloted at the Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital in London, plans to give parents cardboard boxes as a place to safely lay them down to sleep. The containers, supplied by US company The Baby Box Co, come filled with a specially fitted mattress, sheet, babygro, socks and hat - along with a host of other baby-related supplies. It takes its inspiration from a Finnish scheme, where state funded boxes have been supplied to new mothers for 75 years, and are credited with the significant reduction in baby deaths from SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) or 'cot death' as it's widely known.
Numbers have fallen from 65 per 1,000 in 1938 when the scheme began, to just one in 6,000 today. So, what’s not to like? It’s great to see new parents potentially getting free supplies to help them as they start the daunting task of looking after their baby. The boxes don’t do anything special to prevent SIDS. They simply provide a safe place for babies to sleep If the pilot scheme is to be rolled out nationwide, I doubt there are any mums and dads who would decline this helpful, and let’s face it, rather exciting freebie. Parents from backgrounds of socio-economic deprivation will no doubt particularly benefit from being given a newborn ‘starter kit’. Perhaps even more attractive is the idea that putting your baby to bed in a box could drastically reduce their chances of SIDS – surely a message that every terrified new parent would find hard to ignore. But is it really this simple? According to charity the Lullaby Trust, SIDS is, “the sudden and unexplained death of an infant where no cause is found after a detailed post mortem.”
Confusingly, in spite of the fact that SIDS means a death without explanation, information on it often includes advice to avoid co-sleeping, implying that bed-sharing itself can be the cause. But this is not the case, says Jenny Ward from the Lullaby Trust: “Co-sleeping is not in itself a cause of death, it is just a risk factor. We still don’t know why babies die of SIDS, although there is good evidence that certain care practices can reduce the chance of it happening.” The boxes themselves don’t actually do anything special to prevent SIDS, either. They simply provide a safe place for babies to sleep, no different to a cot or a Moses basket. #/ZZVUIVqwYZ— Dani Sinha (@Dani5News) 29 June 2016 “We are not aware of any science that proves that using a box might reduce SIDS”, says Ward. “But there are ways that using a box might enable families to conform to some of our advice. Anything that helps keep their baby in a separate sleeping place that has a firm, flat, waterproof mattress and can be in the parents room is going to be something we are very interested in.”
Claims that these boxes reduce SIDS rates need unpicking. The huge drop in deaths in Finland might sound great, but there has also been a corresponding fall in the UK - where no box scheme has been in operation. Our SIDS rate, while still around double that of Finland, is currently one death per 3,000 births - a huge decline from 75 years ago, when as many as one in four babies didn’t get to see their first birthday due to a range of factors, mostly related to poverty, poor nutrition and infection. As a mum who found that, when it came to breastfeeding, sharing a bed with all three of my babies was one way to stay moderately sane, I think it’s also worth questioning the message these boxes are giving new mums about the safety of sleep locations. Research from 2004, shows that breastfeeding mums get more rest when they sleep with their babies, while numerous studies show that breastfeeding itself lowers the risk of SIDS - unpopular news in times when the freedom of choice to formula feed is quite rightly celebrated, but a fact undisputed by evidence nevertheless.
It’s no wonder we mums get confused, depressed, or reach for the formula So - breastfeeding is easier when you co-sleep, and breastfeeding can reduce the risk of SIDS. But advice given to new parents is often laden with diktats that tell them never to share a bed with their baby, while at the same time reminding them how important it is to breastfeed. It’s no wonder we mums get confused, depressed, or reach for the formula. The most balanced advice on the co-sleeping / SIDS debate seems to come from the Infant Sleep Information Source at Durham University, which acknowledges that bed- sharing is a reality of parenting and that, “many studies have found that mothers and babies who bed-share breastfeed for much longer than those who sleep apart.” Their advice is simple: “The most recent studies have shown that most bed-sharing deaths happen when an adult sleeping with a baby has been smoking, drinking alcohol, or taking drugs (illegal or over-the-counter medicines) that make them sleep deeply.
If you smoke, drink or take drugs your baby will have a lower risk of unexpected death if they sleep on a separate surface such as a cot next to your bed.” Advice on night-time parenting rarely includes this, but instead, like the information on the Baby Box website, outlaws co-sleeping entirely: “Your baby should not sleep in an adult bed…If you bring your baby into your bed to breastfeed, make sure to put him or her back in a safe, separate sleep area in your room.” The Baby Boxes have an opportunity to include some really balanced information on bed-sharing, which could be helpful to new mothers, who, like me, may find that, while they’d like to put their baby back into a box after feeding, that baby has other ideas. Mums and dads are not often given a real picture of night-time parenting. We're told to pick them up, feed them and then lay them back down. It sounds so easy. But most new mums and dads find it is much harder than that. The baby does not want to sleep in his/her box.
But then we're told: 'don't have your baby in the bed'. So there we sit, at 4am, awake with our baby asleep on us, at a loss as to know what to do. Every time we put the baby down? It wakes up again. But parents are not talked to about this common scenario and told how to safely co-sleep, should they wish. Helen Ball from the Infant Sleep Information Source thinks the Baby Box scheme could be a missed opportunity: “Personally I would prefer to see parents and health professionals discussing night-time baby care and safe sleep options. Handing out boxes without discussion of the reality of night-time with a young baby seems to be missing an important opportunity to move beyond a 'one size fits all' approach.” Charlotte Young, a Lactation Consultant and author of Why Breastfeeding Matters, agrees the contents of the boxes could be used to improve information given to new parents, but is also concerned they could be used to exploit them. The opportunity to get information into the hands of new mums is a marketing dream
“Schemes like this provide a real opportunity to improve breastfeeding support. I also think it's vital that the commercial influence is appropriately regulated and parents' details are not merely lucrative marketing fodder.” It’s true that the opportunity to get information into the hands of new mums is a marketing dream. The boxes are entirely funded by a ‘tech platform’, called the Baby Box University, to which parents who receive a box will be given a code allowing them to access online education. Baby Box and Queen Charlotte’s assured me that the contents will be subject to a strict criteria, - but the whole concept set my cynic alarm ringing. Let’s hope I’m wrong, and that these boxes really are a chance to get really helpful and accurate information into the hands of new parents, with no strings attached. Perhaps too, like my dad in the 1930’s, most babies will eschew their box in favour of the bed at some point. As my dear departed Gran put it, “We tried him in the drawer, but he didn’t like it, and we all slept better tucked in together.”