Mothers that fall asleep while feeding their baby – a practice that you should be familiar with – a scientific article

Introduction – asleep while feeding

There is no need to go into how generally tiring it is to be parents, especially in the first few months of the life of your child.
Not only that, but if a mother is breastfeeding, a hormone called oxytocin is released in her body and this as well can cause fatigue and sleepiness.

Why is this phenomena not blessed?

Because falling asleep with one of the parents is a risk factor for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) as explained in the mythological and important chapter about this on our website. It has previously been proven that co-sleeping on a chair or couch increases the risk of SIDS about 49-67 fold.
Parents, on the other hand, may prefer feeding on a couch or chair, and not in their bed, because they prefer to avoid sleep, and this may cause a vicious cycle.
The problem is that there is insufficient information in the medical literature about the prevalence of this phenomena and its risk factors. And this is the objective of this article.

Objectives

To discuss:
1. The prevalence of this practice
2. The risk factors
3. Whether or not providing guidance to parents can change their habits

Methods

Over 1600 mothers of term babies were recruited from 16 different hospitals in the United States between the years 2015 and 2016. In fact, the research is more complex and included groups of parents that had undergone training about safety in breastfeeding and general safety.
Practically, these women were questioned about many different things, including falling asleep during feeding.
Different demographic data was collected about the different populations of mothers.

Results from the study about mothers who fall asleep while feeding their babies

More than 1250 women completed the questionnaires.
How many of the women reported falling asleep during feeding sessions? About 355 women (28.2% of the participants), most of which reported ‘sometimes’ and a small percentage of which reported ‘most of the time’…
Of these women who reported co-sleeping with the babies, most reported that it was unplanned.

What were the risk factors for falling asleep together during feeding?

Exclusive breastfeeding compared to combine feeding or exclusive formula feeding.
It was more likely to occur when the feeding occurred in the parent’s bed compared to on a chair.
In addition, it was proven that appropriate training could reduce the prevalence of this practice

Discussion

First of all, this article was the first to demonstrate that about a third of mothers fall asleep while feeding their baby. This is usually unplanned, but often occurs in a set-up that includes an arm-chair or couch. This is a large proportion.
It has been previously proven that co-bedding or sleeping together on an armchair or couch can increase the risk of SIDS by 49-67 times.
Therefore, it would be great to be able to learn how to prevent this from happening.
Indeed, this study which was also interventional, shows that adequate training can reduce the prevalence of this practice.
This current study quotes previous studies and is in line with similar studies that were carried out in the past, where additional risk factors were found such as nighttime feeding, compared to daytime feeds (makes sense) and breastfeeding compared to formula feeding (there is also an explanation to this and it includes the secretion of the hormone that we mentioned earlier) and more.
The discussion in this study focuses on this practice and its risk factors and ends with a general comment about a lively discourse between caregivers and parents about this practice.
I will take this one step forward and conclude:
1. The practice of falling asleep while feeding a baby is common, in most cases the mother (or father) did not plan to nor did they want to fall asleep.
2. The practice is dangerous, and even more so when it happens on a couch or chair (compared to a bed).
3. It is important to be familiar with this practice and to try and prevent it from occurring as much as possible, both by the parents and the supporting family
4. When training parents, especially parents to newborns, it is important to mention this practice and how to try and avoid it.
5. We should go over all the other risk factors for SIDS and see how we can reduce these risks to a minimum.

I wish all of us safe feeding session and less fatigue.