As an expectant mother and a senior baccalaureate nursing student, I was greatly intrigued by your Second Opinion article entitled "Should Parents Be Advised Against Bed-Sharing With Their Infants?" (Jan/Feb 2002 MCN). The article presented two strong and challenging viewpoints that encouraged me to think deeply about this issue because it carries many personal and professional implications.

According to McKenna (2000), the recent report from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is "flawed" and unreliable because their study failed to address crucial details such as whether the parent smoked, drank alcohol, took drugs, suffered from depression, or knew the baby was even in the bed.

In other countries of the world such as Japan, cosleeping is more the norm than the exception. In western society we choose not to cosleep for reasons such as interference with intimacy in marriage, "spoiling" the infant, and other external factors such as pressure from other family members (Anderson, 2000).

This column presented a very important issue that needs to be explored further so parents and professionals can make an educated decision when choosing to bed-share or not to bed-share.

Sarah L. Poppell

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