Objective:

to study the prevalence of co-sleeping in in the families of children attending pediatric Primary Care consultations and its relation with a certain number of aspects of their upbringing.

Patients and methods:

case-control study with assessment questionnaires. A total of 317 surveys were collected from parents of children between the ages of 6 and 24 months who belonged to two Primary Care consultations in Madrid-Spain. Children who practiced co-sleeping were considered as cases whereas those who did not were considered control group. The number of nocturnal awakenings, episodes of lower respiratory tract infection and the duration of exclusive or complementary breastfeeding have been used as outcome indicators.

Results:

the variables positively related to co-sleeping in the multivariate analysis are: the duration of exclusive breastfeeding, odds ratio (OR) = 1,127 (p = 0,008) and complementary breastfeeding, OR = 0,126 (p < 0,0001); the number of nocturnal awakenings over three times, OR = 1,844 (p = 0,001) and smoking habit by one or both progenitors OR = 2,290 (p = 0,008). The socioeconomic level acts as a protection factor OR = 0,545 (p = 0,001). The presence of lower respiratory tract infections was more frequent in the co-sleeping group, but had no statistical significance in the multivariate analysis.

Conclusions:

the results indicate that co-sleeping favours breastfeeding and its extension through time. Nevertheless, it also favours children's nocturnal awakening and increases the risk of lower respiratory infections. The low socioeconomic level of the families and tobacco smoking are factors that favour co-sleeping.

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