Parents should stop sharing a bed with their babies, warning it increases the risk of 'sudden infant death'

Parents should not let their baby share their bed because it increases the risk of sudden infant death, experts have warned.

Health officials in Sweden are so worried about the practice that they have issued new guidance to highlight the dangers. 

Bed-sharing between parents and infants is widespread in the country - but this can put newborns at risk. 

Parents should not let their baby share their bed because it increases the risk of sudden infant death

'It's important that children under three months sleep in their own beds,' said Kerstin Nordstrand, of the National Board of Health and Welfare.

She said the recommendation was 'new', since the institution had previously only advised against new-borns sleeping in the same room as a smoker, or in the same bed as a parent under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

The information was first published by Swedish medical newspaper Dagens Medicin, which cited a paediatrics professor at Gothenburg University.

'It has been clear in the research in recent years that co-sleeping is a risk factor in Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS),' Professor Goeran Wennergren told the paper.

A 2001 study published in the paediatric journal Early Human Development showed that 65 per cent of three-month-old Swedish babies slept with their parents, the highest rate in the Western world.

A report published by the British Medical Journal, which analysed nearly 1,500 sudden infant deaths, revealed that 22 per cent took place while the baby slept in the parental bed.

The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare says it is vital that babies sleep in their own bed until they are at least three months old

According to professor of medical statistics Bob Carpenter, who was responsible for the study, the risk of sudden infant death among babies sleeping with their parents is five times higher than in those who sleep alone.

Other countries, including France and the U.S., recommend sleeping in the same room as the new-born, but not in the same bed.

SIDS is the unexpected, sudden death of a child under the age of one in which an autopsy does not show an explainable cause of death. It is also known as cot death.

Almost all SIDS deaths occur without warning or symptoms when the infant is thought to be sleeping.

Some recommendations to prevent SIDS include putting the baby to sleep on its back, with enough space to move, avoiding exposure to tobacco smoke and making sure they are not too hot.