Yeah, fo rme and the research I've done, I'm reducing my risk of SIDS by co-sleeping. My baby's safest place is right next to me. I have no sleep disorders, take no drugs of dependency that affect my cognition or consciousness and I am of average weight. I use my own doona for my baby mostly and my baby sleeps on a lambskin. Just an example of how someone makes a decision
It's not just that other cultures don't have a name for a syndrome, they don't have the syndrome to report in the first place. Their babies don't just suddenly die for no reason. They die for other reasons, just like in our culture, and also for reasons that shouldn't exist like famine or disease, but not for no reason.
There is emerging evidence that Western disorders are being universalised (if that is a term!) and people from other cultures are developing disorders previously unknown to them - depression and anorexia being among them. We are so ethnocentric that we assume all cultures have these symptoms and that the DSM-IV applies the world over, when it does not. And not being Western doesn't automatically mean deprivation, either. My family in Central America may live completely differently from us and live on a lot less money, but they aren't riddled with disease, suffering from drought or famine or any ohter symptoms of poverty. Western doesn't mean better, and I think this is the trap we fall into as a society.
To me, sleeping with my babies is the normal thing. The science only backs up a decision I would have made anyway.
We've spent so long telling mothers how to do things that it's no wonder they aren't able to identify what is intuition in order to know to trust it or not. 'Intuition' can't be measured or 'proven', so it's suspect in our world.
I think, as we're talking about SIDS (and not accidental rollovers), you'd be hard pressed to find instances of SIDS whilst co-sleeping, where the mother wasn't impaired in her normal functioning by substances or known medical conditions (like sleep apnoea).