Almost every parent has done it, fallen asleep next to their tiny bundle of humanity. Babies need to be cuddled and fed in the night hours. Sometimes taking a baby to bed is the only way to soothe a crying infant and get some much-needed parental sleep.
Roisin and Jim Mahony with a picture of their son Shane, who died 7 years ago from cot death, two days after the picture was taken
But a new study linking sudden infant death with parental co-sleeping is casting a dark shadow over what seems like the most natural thing in the world.
The research, published in October's British Medical Journal, showed that 54pc of sudden infant deaths (SIDS) occurred while the baby was co-sleeping with a parent. It found babies were more at risk of SIDS when sleeping with parents who smoked or who had recently used drugs or alcohol (31pc versus 3pc of a control group).
The resulting headlines have caused "great hurt and anxiety" among bereaved parents here, according to Ger O'Brien of the Irish Sudden Infant Death Association.
Breastfeeding mothers' group La Leche League is concerned that the wrong message is being picked up. They maintain that when it comes to taking baby to bed, the research needs a more nuanced analysis.
'People feel very guilty when a baby dies. This research has added to the hurt of the newly bereaved while bringing back pain to older parents. They feel people will make negative assumptions about them," said Ger O'Brien.
One of those parents is Roisin Mahony. The Kildare-based bank official lost her first-born son, Shane, at nine months old. He died in his cot.
"Hearing things on TV and radio saying cot death can be caused by co-sleeping, smoking, drinking or drug taking, really upset me and my mum who was babysitting when Shane died. My son's death ticked none of those boxes. He was never taken into bed and no one in the family smoked. Yet now people will think maybe we did something wrong," said Roisin.
Shane died just a week after Roisin's 21st birthday. "He was a healthy baby and he had just started crawling. The night he died mum put him to sleep in his cot and checked him several times. The last time, just before she went to bed, she noticed he looked very pale. The hospital is just around the corner from our house. Shane was there within minutes but it was too late. The doctors did a detailed autopsy but they could find no reason, that's why it's called sudden infant death," said Roisin.
La Leche League spokeswoman Jan Cromie is an experienced co-sleeper. At one stage mother-of-four Jan had three children under four sharing her bed.
She doesn't necessarily recommend it, but she does say parents who want to bed-share shouldn't be frightened and put off by this research.
"The media coverage prompted UNICEF to issue a statement clarifying the study. It turns out the rate of sudden infant death for a baby sleeping in a parent's bed or in a cot was actually the same at 38pc and no-one is suggesting babies don't sleep in cots.
"What it did highlight was the risk posed by people falling asleep on the sofa with their baby, 17pc of the babies who died were on the sofa. Among those in a bed, the risk was only significant if the parent had drunk more than two units of alcohol or had been taking drugs or medication," said Jan.
"In societies such as Japan, almost all babies sleep with their parents, yet their rate of SIDS is infinitesimal. Why is that?" she asked.
UNICEF's experts agree that bed-sharing helps parents cope with unsettled babies and frequent feeders, adding that bed-sharing helps promote breast-feeding and builds up parental bonds by encouraging intimate contact. They say the four-year study of sudden infant death in the south of England is an attempt to "discuss bed-sharing with parents so that risks can be identified and minimised". It is not, they stressed, an attempt to "promote restrictions which cannot be applied in parents' real worlds".
The co-author of the research Dr Peter Blair is adamant that he is not advocating an absolute ban on taking baby into bed.
"If you demonise the parental bed you're still going to get tired mothers with young infants where the infant has woken up three or four times in the night.
"The mother is walking around thinking they can't take them into bed, so they go onto the sofa and fall asleep. Coming out with a simplistic statement about bed-sharing can do more harm than good." said Dr Blair.
For Temple Street Hospital science researcher Karina Hamilton, the best advice to parents is that they can take baby to bed -- but not for too long.
Karina and Professor Tom Matthew's team at the Dublin children's hospital has been involved in an ongoing study into sudden infant death since 1992, when a campaign telling parents babies should always be placed on their backs to sleep was launched.
"The 'back to sleep' campaign cut the number of SIDS deaths in half almost overnight. It was amazing that something so simply should have such a dramatic effect. And it could be one of the reasons why we are now starting to notice particular trends such as bed-sharing and smoking," said Karina.
The UK research was not news to the Temple Street team. Their 2006 SIDS study came up with broadly similar findings and resulted in the HSE issuing new guidelines.
"The risk is only there if the baby is in the bed for the entire sleep period. You can take a baby into the bed for a short period, settle the child and then return them to their cot," said Karina.
But she stressed there are circumstances when it is absolutely not safe to share a bed with baby, particularly if you smoke or have taken alcohol, drugs or any medication which might make you sleep heavily. "Research shows 68pc of SIDS parents had consumed alcohol on the night their baby died.
"Among babies who died in their parents' bed, 87pc had mothers who smoked during pregnancy," said Karina
Temple Street's studies also confirm that snoozing on the sofa with an infant can be lethal.
But if taking a baby to bed is a fraught issue and parents can't afford to risk nodding off on the sofa, just what are the sleep-deprived supposed to do when their infants won't settle?
From her home in Donegal, La Leche League spokeswoman Jan Cromie proposed an acceptable compromise. There are side-car cribs which attach to the parental bed. "The baby has its own sleeping surface which avoids the dangers of duvets and overheating but they are still within touching distance of their parents."
Jan Cromie maintains that while parents need to be aware of the risk factors, families find their own solutions to the vexed questions of whether or not to bring baby to bed.
For bereaved mothers such as Roisin Mahony, the furore over the SIDS research has provided little comfort. "People hear cot death linked to drink and drugs. The fact is that some babies die for unknown reasons and those parents have nothing to blame themselves for," she stressed. ( @Independent News )
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