Bed sharing is a practice in which an infant shares the same sleep surface with another person, including the parents or siblings; it is often used interchangeably with co-sleeping. Co-sleeping is also used to mean having the infant sleep in a bassinet or crib that is directly next to the parents’ bed or in the same room.

The National Sudden and Unexpected Infant-Child Death and Pregnancy Loss Resource Center’s Web site includes an updated bibliography on bed sharing, co-sleeping, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and one on swaddling and SIDS. Each bibliography presents definitions and lists recent citations and abstracts from peer-reviewed journals. The bibliographies also include a customized tool that can be used to search PubMed for additional articles. The bibliographies are available as follows:
Bed Sharing, Co-Sleeping, and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS): A Selected Annotated Bibliography is available at http://www.sidscenter.org/TopicalBib/BedSharing.html