Baby Sleep Charity Warns Parents Against Falling Asleep Holding Baby Due To 'High-Risk' Of Suffocation

A charity is warning parents about the “high-risk” situation of falling asleep with their baby on their chest.

Lullaby Trust, an organisation providing expert advice on safer sleep for babies, said this position can increase the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) by up to 50 times.

SIDS - sometimes known as ‘cot death’ – is the sudden, unexpected and unexplained death of an apparently healthy baby.

“Sleeping on a sofa or in an armchair with your baby is one of the most high-risk situations for them,” a spokesperson told HuffPost UK.

“Not only is there the risk of accidents or suffocation but it can increase the risk of SIDS by up to 50 times.”

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The spokesperson from Lullaby Trust has issued guidance to parents to avoid this situation.

“If you think you might accidentally fall asleep with your baby on the sofa, put the baby down in a safe place to sleep, for example in a separate moses basket or cot using a firm, flat waterproof mattress,” they advised.

“If you are breastfeeding on the sofa, it can help to have someone else stay up with you, breastfeed in a different position where you are confident you will not fall asleep, or feed the baby somewhere else.”

The charity’s comments came after a dad recently spoke out about how he tragically lost his son after falling asleep on the sofa with him.

Dr Sam Hanke, from Kentucky, US, fell asleep on the sofa with his four-week-old son Charlie in April 2010. He woke up, hours later, to find his son was no longer breathing.

“I just sat down on the couch to watch some TV and he was kind of sitting on my chest,” he recently opened up to Fatherly.

“We were just hanging out and I nodded off. A couple hours later I woke up and Charlie was gone.”

Dr Hanke and his wife have since set up Charlie’s Kids Foundation, with the purpose of increasing safe sleep awareness.

Issuing further guidance on safer sleep for babies, the Lullaby Trust said parents should never co-sleep with their baby in bed if:

Either you or your partner smokes (even if you do not smoke in the bedroom)
Either you or your partner has drunk alcohol or taken drugs (including medications that may make you drowsy)
You are extremely tired
Your baby was born premature (37 weeks or less) or was of low birth weight (2.5kg or 51/2lbs or less).

For more information, visit lullabytrust.org.uk/safer-sleep-advice/co-sleeping.

Before You Go

Baby Sleep Tricks

The Guide Book(01 of04)

The Gentle Sleep Solution: The Naturally Nurturing Way To Help Your Baby To Sleep offers a gentle alternative to controlled crying methods. Drawing on her experience as a psychologist, CBT therapist and mother of four, Shallow teaches parents, firstly, how to identify the underlying reason for their baby's troubled sleeping by reading their behaviour, and, secondly, how to respond in ways that will help to reduce their anxiety and allow them to fall asleep independently. (credit:Jupiterimages via Getty Images)

The Bedtime Story Book(02 of04)

Swedish behavioural psychologist and linguist Carl-Johan Forssen Ehrlin spent more than three years perfecting his bestselling sleep-inducing bedtime story The Rabbit Who Wants To Fall Asleep. Using psychological and positive reinforcement techniques to help little ones to relax, focus and eventually drift off, he describes the story as “the verbal equivalent of rocking a baby to sleep.” (credit:Penguin Random House)

The Smartphone App(03 of04)

The Sound Sleeper app, gives you a choice of sounds for lulling your baby to sleep according to her personal preferences – whether that’s the rhythm of the womb, a gentle ‘shhh’ or the sound of a vacuum cleaner. It also ‘listens’ for your baby and starts playing the sound you’ve chosen as soon as it hears a whimper. You can even track your baby’s sleep and generate graphs to help you learn and analyse your baby’s sleep patterns. (credit:Layland Masuda via Getty Images)

The Night Light(04 of04)

The Sleepy Baby™ Biological LED Lamp light bulb works by filtering out the stimulating blue light spectrum that can inhibit your baby’s production of the sleep hormone, melatonin. Although it provides adequate light for bedtime stories, nappy changes and night-time feeds, your baby’s brain registers the light as darkness, making it easier for them to fall back asleep. (credit:Lighting Science)