A mom has recently shared a heartbreaking warning about co-sleeping with your little one in the hopes that other parents will re-think the dangerous practice.
For those of you who might not be aware, co-sleeping is when parents choose to sleep with their babies in the same bed.
Medical experts have branded the practice as dangerous due to the fact that there is a higher risk of sudden unexpected infant death (SUID) and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
The former involves injury, heart problems, infection, choking, and suffocation which can cause death to your infant, while the latter is used when there is no specific explanation can be found for their death.
However, both are extremely dangerous.
One mom shared a warning with other parents after experiencing the consequences of co-sleeping with her child.
Sharing her story on CafeMom, Savannah Struchen opened up about the social expectations of leaving a baby in a crib to sleep versus bed-sharing.
After a long night of dealing with a "family emergency" and having a little drink, Struchen didn't realize that she was "too tired" to be sleeping with her baby on her chest. So, after telling herself it would be okay, she put her baby on her breast and fell asleep.
"When I woke up, there was blood on my shirt and coming from her nose," she wrote. "I panicked, remembering the story of a mom who lost her baby to bedsharing — she said she found her baby with blood and mucus flowing from her nose. That when babies suffocate, the capillaries in their noses explode. Not me. Not my baby. It couldn't be. She would wake up if I picked her up and changed her diaper, right?"
Harrowingly, she followed it up with: "She didn't. She was as limp as a rag doll."
Struchen and her husband were left devastated at the realization that their youngest was dead. And now not only were they grieving this massive loss, they were also dealing with DCS and the police.
"I remember being talked to, driven to the police station, and being interrogated," she recalled. "I remember the cop taking my shirt for evidence and handing me another to change into. I remember crying until my eyes were swollen, my face was smeared with snot, and my head hurt. I remember asking the officer if I was going to be arrested. I remember being told that she didn't make it. I remember, but it's a hazy blur."
The mom realized that all those warnings she was given by nurses, doctors and her own husband - who ended up leaving her along with the rest of her children who were taken away by social services - were for a reason.
But it was too late for her.
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Now she's giving advice to other mothers as doesn't want them to endure what she has, because a few hours of sleep could be the difference between life and death.
"Most moms don't think about the fact that they will be an UNCONSCIOUS adult weighing so much more than baby, and that a baby's suffocation is silent," she wrote in her lengthy post. "Most moms won't think that a baby will be completely helpless to get themselves out of a suffocating situation. That mom, or dad, or a sibling that also shares mom's bed, might roll ... or even drape an arm or another body part over baby. That a pillow or blanket might shift and wind up over baby's face."
She continued later on in the piece: "I ask every mom who reads this who still bedshares, intends to bedshare, or is on the fence between bedsharing and safe sleep — do you REALLY want to take that risk of a very tiny variable killing your baby — a variable you cannot control because you will be ASLEEP?
"I wish I hadn't taken that risk. I wish I'd listened. Please listen to me and don't let Abby's death be in vain," she added.
Please follow the advice of medical professionals when it comes to co-sleeping as it can have severe consequences.
For more information, please visit the Sleep Foundation by clicking here.
