You’re a parent who wants to strengthen the ties with your newborn by bringing the baby into bed with you. The last thing you want or expect is for the baby to die, but records show that accidental bed-sharing deaths due to strangulation and suffocation are increasing.

We applaud the Chicago Tribune for its front-page feature on this important issue. The story reveals that between 1984 and 2004, these accidental deaths quadrupled nationally. In Illinois, of the 320 sleep-related infant deaths investigated by state Child Death Review Teams between 2008 and 2010, almost 60 percent occurred while bed-sharing.

Illinois legislators recently passed two new laws aimed at curbing sleep-related infant deaths. One, which went into effect this month, mandates additional training for daycare providers. Another, which went into effect last year, requires hospitals to provide new parents with safe sleeping information.

In October, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a policy that advised against bed-sharing, noting that the risk of sudden death syndrome can be cut by as much as 50 percent. Other organizations, like the Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Lab at the University of Notre Dame, maintain that bed-sharing can be done safely and with a great benefit to the parental bonds. They say that parents should be able to make their own decisions about bed-sharing without feeling guilty about their decision.