An ad campaign launched by the City of Milwaukee to make parents aware of the dangers of co-sleeping with their babies has made national news, due to the shock value of the ad itself.
The ad campaign features a baby sleeping next to a knife. Above the picture of the baby the ad says: “Your baby sleeping with you can be just as dangerous.” In smaller letter it also says: “Babies can die when sleeping in adult beds. Always put your baby to sleep on his back, in a crib.”
“Look, co-sleeping in this country leads to infant deaths,” Nancy Snydrman, NBC’s chief medical editor, said Wednesday morning during a segment on NBC’s Today show. “But I think this is over the top, absolutely over the top.”
“If it saves one baby …” interrupted advertising executive Donny Deutsch.
The ad campaign’s stated purpose is to support the city’s goal to decrease the infant mortality rate—especially in the African-American community—by 15 percent by 2017. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said, “We are trying to change behavior in a way I believe will help save babies’ lives.”
According to a Milwaukee Health Department news release, from 2008–2010 there were 340 infant deaths in Milwaukee; for every 1,000 infants born during that time period, just over 10 infants died before their first birthday.
According to the data, African American infants were 2.6 times more likely to die than Caucasian infants, with Milwaukee’s African American infant mortality rate being worse than the overall rate of at least 35 countries around the world.
A Facebook page—“Campaign Against Milwaukee’s Co-Sleeping Campaign” provides an outlet for parents who support co-sleeping or who otherwise think the city has gone too far to voice their opinions. “I suggest promoting safe co-sleeping practices. ... It’s not as simple a message as don’t bedshare,” one person posted.
The milwaukeemoms.com website posted, “Now, I will be the first to admit, I understand why they are doing this: Milwaukee has had at least nine deaths this year attributed to co-sleeping with an infant. It’s obviously an issue that needs to be addressed. My problem is that co-sleeping is not the issue; parents not using common sense is the issue.”
Bill Sears of askdrsears.com, a pediatrician and proponent of bed sharing, cites that more infant deaths occur in unsafe cribs than in parents’ beds, and that cultures who traditionally practice safe co-sleeping, such as Asians, enjoy the lowest incidence of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
About 20 percent of Milwaukee’s high infant mortality rate is caused by SIDS and Sudden Unexplained Death in Infancy (SUDI), with a majority of these deaths being caused by unsafe sleeping environments. Of the 89 infants that died between 2006 and 2009, 46 were associated with infants sleeping in an adult bed at the time of death.
The failure to reduce the infant mortality rate in Milwaukee in the last 10 years prompted officials to launch the provocative ad campaign.
Creative director Gary Mueller of Serve Marketing said the images were meant to be unsettling
