Nearly one third of moms practice bed-sharing with infant

Almost one third of women participating in the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program report sharing a bed with their infant, as reported in the October Journal of Pediatrics.

Researchers looked at 708 mothers of babies up to 8 months old who were getting nutritional assistance from WIC. They found that 48.6% of mothers reported sharing a room, but not a bed, with their infants. This complies with an AAP recommendation in 2005 that babies from birth to age one sleep in the same room as their parents, but not share a bed.

However, 32.5% shared a bed with their child, while 18.9% had the baby sleep in his or her own room. The report noted that teenage mothers, as well as less educated mothers, were more likely to bed-share with their infants. African-American mothers also bed-shared more frequently than women who belonged to other ethnicities, the researchers found.