Wisconsin Entrepreneurs, The Lesser Known Conservationist, The Co-Sleeping Conversation

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• Recent Anti-Bed-Sharing Campaigns Spark Co-Sleeping Debates

  Infant safety is undoubtedly a top priority for any parent of a newborn, but is sharing a bed straddling the line between safety and danger?

  Dane County health officials have recently launched campaigns advocating for safe sleeping practices, in response to its 22 infant deaths in the last five years, which officials said were linked to poor sleep environments.

  Bed-sharing, which is the act of a parent sleeping with a baby in the same bed, is a common practice world wide. In fact, because it’s a regular habit for moms of infants, UNICEF provides safe bed-sharing guidelines for parents who co-sleep with their baby.

  And yet, with the rise in mortality rates, the debate over co-sleeping methods — separate surface versus bed-sharing forms — continues.

  “Sleeping with your baby is a danger,” said Ingrid Andersson, a nurse-midwife at Community Midwives in Madison and a member of Safe Conversations for Safe Sleep, a Madison-based child safety advocacy group.

  “Newborn through 6 months (old) is the period of time that babies are primarily at risk for suddenly unexpected baby deaths,” said Andersson.

  Last month, University of Wisconsin Health partnered with Kohl’s department store for the “Safe Sleep, Sleep Well” campaign, which aims to educate parents on proper child sleeping conditions, to reduce risks of infant mortality. The initiative urges parents to lay their babies in separate, firm surfaces, like cradles.

  “Share the room, not the bed,” is one of the slogans used on their billboards and bus signs informing families of the presumed dangers of bed sharing.

  But James McKenna, professor of anthropology and director of Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Lab at the University of Notre Dame, disagrees with some of the anti-co-sleeping ideas.

  “(Anti-bed-sharing campaigns) stigmatize what is human behavior,” said McKenna, who classifies separate-surface and bed-sharing as different forms of co-sleeping.

  “To deprive these parents of an instinctual kind of behavior, particularly for breastfeeding mothers, and to hold back information that can be lifesaving, insofar as reducing the risks of bed sharing is completely unethical,” said McKenna.

  McKenna said that because of physiological differences, bed sharing is more of a risk for bottle-fed infants than breastfed infants. He said he believes that with the proper safety measures, bed sharing can be an appropriate practice.

  In any case, both strongly recommend parents of newborns to learn and practice safe sleeping environment techniques that reduce risks of child endangerment.

• The State Of Entrepreneurship In Wisconsin

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  Wisconsin was recently ranked one of the states with the lowest levels of entrepreneurial activity in the country by the Kauffman Foundation. This week, entrepreneurs from around Wisconsin met in the state’s capitol to boost their recognition, share stories, and discuss challenges facing the community.

• Wisconsin Legends: Sigurd Olson

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  While maybe not as well known as Gaylord Nelson or Aldo Leopold, Sigurd Olson was one of Wisconsin’s first champions of the environment. A writer discusses the life and work of Olson, whose love for nature was inspired by his early life in Northern Wisconsin.

• Beyond Co-Sleeping: A Broader Approach To Infant Safety

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  There have been major safety campaigns in Wisconsin aimed at ending the practice of “co-sleeping”–parents sleeping in beds with infants. A nurse-midwife and an infant health researcher say those campaigns miss wider issues of infant health and safety–and they hope to start a bigger conversation.