Children in bed with parents: what a new study reveals about psychological development

Despite the risks and the fact that, especially for newborns, the «bed sharing» is Not recommended (on all counts, experts point out that sleeping with parents could be one of the causes of Sidsthe Sudden Infant Death Syndromecot death syndrome or sudden infant death syndrome), a new study reports some new elements on the topic. A topic, it must be said, deeply controversial and debated.

Also because if in many cases parents choose “bed-sharing” – also called “co-sleeping”, although this definition can also mean just sharing a room – in many others they are forced to share the bed by the nature and attitude of the infants, to be able to allow themselves a rest that would otherwise be impossible or even to encourage breastfeeding. The recommendations of theAmerican Academy of Pedriaticsfor example, indicate that babies, for approximately the first 6 months, should naturally sleep in their parents’ room but near their bed, on a special surface like “next to me” cribs. Suffocation, strangulation And entrapment are in fact frequent risks in sharing a bed with other family members, adults or brothers and sisters. Sids affects on average one child in 1,500-2,000 and in Italy causes approximately 300 deaths per year.

Having made this necessary premise, a recently published study has discovered that it is Bed-sharing between parents is unlikely to have an impact on the psychological development of children. Thus answering another of the questions of those who have chosen “bed-sharing” or are forced to practice it. The survey by the University of Essex examined nearly 17,000 British children and monitored them for 11 years, discovering that those who shared a bed when they were very young they were happy and healthy. Ayten Bilgin, from the Department of Psychology, that is, he did not find any association between bed-sharing at age 9 months and developmental and childhood emotional or behavioral problems.

As mentioned, the practice – net of the concrete risks of Sids – is the subject of controversy also because some experts believed and believe that negatively affects the development of children. «Despite the ongoing debate about the potential long-term harms and benefits of bed-sharing, a study has been conducted little scientific research on this topic “Parents can rest assured that, as long as it is done safely, bed-sharing is unlikely to have a negative impact on children’s emotional and behavioral development. There is a lot of guilt and shame surrounding bed-sharing, but it is a parent’s choice.”

The study, published in Attachment & Human Developmentused data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study, which follows the lives of 16,599 children born in the UK. Parents reported information about their children’s bed-sharing and so-called internalising behaviours – such as depression and anxiety – and externalising behaviours, such as aggression and hyperactivity, when they were 3, 5, 7 and 11 years old.

SCIENTIFIC SOURCES CITED IN THIS ARTICLE:

• Study published on Attachment & Human Development