Bedsharing banned?
Help API provide appropriate and safe cosleeping and bedsharing education for parents and professionals.

December 2010

 
 

Dear Friend,

Can you imagine bedsharing being outlawed in your state? Misinformation given in hospitals and fear-based campaigns are undermining the millennia-old practice of sleep sharing. Attachment parenting is attacked and parents need support more than ever.

In the midst of the controversy, API has continued to provide support, and launched advocacy and education campaigns and augmented its accredited Leaders resources to provide safe cosleeping information and to support families facing criticism about safe bedsharing and babywearing.

Part of API's campaign is an API Live! Teleseminar we are sharing with you in this letter as a free audio download. We invite you to listen and consider a gift to API to help scale up out campaign to reach more families and professionals.

Sharing the concerns of many health professionals who work with families in childbirth and children's health, API Founders Lysa Parker and Barbara Nicholson believe that access to healthy and safe information about co-sleeping and babywearing is being threatened. API needs your help to increase its efforts to counteract misinformation and advocate for safe parenting practices that promote healthy attachment among babies and other family members.

Our work is more important than ever as we face organized and well-funded campaigns that fan fear and spread misinformation. Consider this disturbing and misleading anti-bedsharing campaign that was launched in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Help us educate and support parents so they safely co-sleep and use soft carriers for their infants by supporting API with a financial contribution today. Your contribution of $50 helps introduce infant sleep and babywearing safety information to 5 childbirth centers, health departments, and hospitals or train and accredit a new API Leader. $100 can help API provide sleep and babywearing safety support and information to many parents online and through a local accredited leader and support group for three months.

Parents lack complete and accurate information on safe infant sleep. Recent research indicates that 60% of parents are sleeping with infants at some point and 25% are falling asleep with infants in dangerous sleep locations. Public "safe-sleep" campaigns omit healthy co-sleeping options and limit parent choices.

Please help API get complete and accurate safety information to parents! We advocate and educate through our local groups and Leaders and distribute our safe babywearing and sleep brochures to ensure that parents have the most accurate and up to date information.

API is one of the few advocates for babywearing and cosleeping. Responding to two urgent, but separate and well funded campaigns at once is a great undertaking. We need your help as we protect healthy parenting choices and provide parents with access to practical, accurate and complete safety information.

As we near the end of the year, we thank you for all you've done to support API. As our gift to you, we're including a free recording of the API Live! Teleseminar with guest Jim McKenna, PhD:

SETTLING THE COSLEEPING CONTROVERSY: Get the Facts About Cosleeping, SIDS, Bedsharing and Breastfeeding with special guest Dr. James McKenna

Click to listen and share it to help spread this important information.

Our work isn't over and new challenges arise on a weekly basis. We hope you'll make API a top contribution this year as we continue to support parents in raising healthy children by consistently seeking and delivering accurate and complete information and offering support to all families.

Sincerely,

Board Member
Attachment Parenting International

 

Why Support API?
Details on Safe Infant Sleep, Babywearing and other important API initiatives
Subscribe to API's free monthly e-news
Subscribe to the API Blog
Follow API on Facebook