Today has been an emotive day !

Professor Bob Carpenter has released a new research paper relating to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome stating that there is a 5 fold increase in a chance of SIDS if you share a bed with your newborn breastfed baby. 

I've never made a conscious decision to co-bed with my children but I can hand on heart say that I have on a regular occasion when sleep deprivation has been too much brought them into bed with us to get a better nights sleep.

I'm not an advocate of bed sharing but I can see the benefits of it if done safely but if I am fully informed of all the risks would I actively choose to co-bed? The answer to that is no.  It is for me a personal choice I followed the Safer Sleep advice and had my children in their own cot/moses basket in the same room as me for the first 6 months (longer in some cases) so that I could tend to them immediately and would become aware of any changes.

The Lullaby Trust are not a finger pointing charity, they are not telling you what to do or what not to do, they are merely making all parents aware of the risk factors involved with co-bedding and letting parents make an informed decision based on all those facts.

We need to look at the wider picture and we need to keep our heads.  No one wants to scare parents this is not about causing hysteria it is merely highlighting a risk factor in SIDS.  

There are pros and cons and each family will do things their own way but by getting that message out there and keeping people informed then for me today's report is a good thing.  It's getting the word out there that this silent killer happens and it happens to families like us.  It leaves us devastated and heartbroken and leaves us with a perpetual WHY? 
I will forever question my actions as a mother, it's how we are built.  I didn't breastfeed, could I have tried harder?  Would that mean Alexander would've had a better chance? what if I hadn't left him to sleep that morning? Could I have saved him? 
There are too many what if's and more and more research is required to keep us as parents fully informed of the best actions to take with regards to our children.

Any research into SIDS for me is keeping that momentum going, if this research saves just one baby's life then isn't it worth it? If by sharing my story just one family feel like they are not alone in their suffering then it is more than worth it.   

I would do anything to have Alexander back but I know hand on heart that there is nothing we could have done to prevent his death.  No one is to blame and we don't know the cause but I will keep fundraising and fighting to find out why it was my son.

For more information on Safer Sleeping and The Lullaby Trust see their website at 
http://www.lullabytrust.org.uk/new-design/safer-sleep/safer-sleep_

These are my thoughts and mine alone on today's report please tell me what you think...

The Lullaby Trust response to the paper: Bed sharing when parents do not smoke: Is there a risk of SIDS? An individual level analysis of five major case-control studies by Carpenter et al, published today in BMJ Open

Francine Bates OBE, Chief Executive of the safer baby sleep charity, The Lullaby Trust (formerly FSID), said: “Professor Carpenter is the leading statistician working in the field of sudden infant death research and we welcome his substantial new paper. The paper identifies that bed-sharing is associated with a five- fold increase in the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) for breastfed babies, less than three months old, whose parents do not smoke.  

“All Lullaby Trust resources for parents and professionals include information that bed sharing, under certain circumstances, increases the risk of SIDS and we will be incorporating his new findings into the evidence base which informs our recommendations. 

“As a charity with a proud track record of promoting safe sleep advice, which helped to dramatically reduce the numbers of sudden infant deaths in the UK over the last 20 years, we have never actively promoted bed sharing. However, we recognise that some parents will choose to sleep with their babies as opposed to placing them in a cot or a Moses basket next to their bed. The Lullaby Trust supports parental choice but we would also urge every new mother and father to weigh up the known risks of sharing a bed with their baby and, in light of their own situation, take appropriate precautions.

“We have also known for many years that parental smoking is a very significant risk factor for SIDS and that bed sharing with a parent who smokes, has drunk alcohol or taken drugs, dramatically increases a baby’s chances of dying. Professor Carpenter’s paper provides us with even more evidence of the dangers, identifying a 65-fold increase in SIDS risk for two week old babies who share a bed with parents who both smoke. 

“We are currently working very closely with a coalition of organisations to help reduce the numbers of mothers who smoke during and after pregnancy. If we can encourage many more pregnant women to quit then we should make great leaps forward in achieving our goal of halving the numbers of SIDS deaths by 2020.

“The Lullaby Trust is committed to preventing the unnecessary death of any baby which is why we believe that every family should have all the evidence on SIDS risk factors so that they can make an informed choice on how best to care for their baby.

Our core message remains that the safest place for a baby to sleep for the first six months is in a crib or cot in the same room as a parent or carer.”

Well despite the weather we had a great turn out so THANK YOU all who made the effort to come and support us once again.

This year as we have for the last 5 years our walk was held at the beautiful and scenic Cannon Hall.  We walked our route through the grounds and gardens of this local attraction and attracted a little bit of attention ourselves!

There are lots and lots of photos of the day, I nominated my Dad to be official photographer and he got some fantastic shots, a few of which are in a slideshow below.

I love the Mile in Memory, it's a day for lots of family and friends to come together, catch up and of course keep those not with us a little closer.  For me it's not a massive fundraiser and I try not to make it into a complicated and over organised day. I had asked for donations of £1 per adult and everyone gave us so much more than that and we raised £225 including donations from our Just Giving page as well.
I'd like to say a great big Thank You to Alison Townend at Jolly Tots Soft Play for the donation of bubbles and Karen Tyas at Cafe Creme in Penistone for the donation of Cupcakes they went down a treat.

I decided that instead of a balloon release this year and inspired by Jennie Edspire and Matilda Mae that we would blow bubbles instead.  This was a huge hit with everyone getting involved and it was great to see the children chasing them all especially the mass amount from our bubble blowing fish which made for some fabulous pictures and covered the whole of Cannon Hall in Bubbles!

It was lovely as always to see you all there and fantastic to see a couple of new faces especially Leyla from http://thisdayilove.blogspot.co.uk/p/about-me.html 

Thank You Everyone x

There are many more photos to be seen at our Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/AlexandersCharityBall

Here it is !!!

Our new beautiful logo as designed for us by Seventeen Four

 Angie and I have been corresponding on twitter for a while and she has given me some great fundraising tips over the last couple of years and so she had a hand in asking Seventeen Four if they could help out as well as making suggestions for design ideas.

Seventeen Four is a web design and development business but they used their knowledge to help me out with the logo and I think they've done a fabulous job incorporating stars which has been a running theme for Alexander and including the colours of The Lullaby Trust to tie the two together.

My 5 beautiful stars all together creating a legacy as a family Thank You it's perfect 


http://www.seventeenfour.co.uk/