When my son Aldo was born last year, five weeks premature, he spent a few days in a heated cot next to my hospital bed, then migrated into my arms. The hospital bed was narrow, so he mostly slept on top of me; once we were home, the two of us shared a double bed. He slept with his head in the crook of my arm, and he woke me up a lot, sometimes every hour. But it felt calm, natural and just about survivable, and it also – possibly, maybe – saved Aldo's life.
Sometime in the small hours, in the very early days, he stopped breathing. In my sleep I felt him tense up and choke; I woke up with a start, hooked him over one shoulder, patted him firmly, and he seemed to gag and then start breathing again. Oddly, in retrospect, we then went straight back to sleep.
The next day we took him to our GP and then the hospital; they said he was fine, just breathing a bit fast, probably nothing to worry about. There was also mild reproof from the consultant on the children's ward: what was I doing sharing a bed with a tiny infant? Had I not been told it was dangerous? I said I had been told. This was my second child, and I already knew the official line was that putting the baby down in a cot, away from you, was best – however much it goes against your instincts, however much the baby "fusses", however much it might mess with the fragile but precious connection between a mother and a newborn.
This impulse to separate women from their newborns is real and it's widespread, not just among NHS staff but also among journalists and pundits; it's the beating heart of almost every story we get to read about co-sleeping, of every TV discussion. You will meet some midwives, health visitors and doctors who are relaxed about co-sleeping, but many more seem to have received the same memo as that consultant on the children's ward (who was, in all other respects, a delight).
All of which would be fine if there was evidence to suggest that a sober, healthy woman sleeping with her infant, in a bed, was a bad thing. But I can't see that there is. As with so much of the advice that is handed out to pregnant women and new mothers, it's just plain old-fashioned nonsense. And potentially harmful nonsense too.
