Researchers propose 'breastsleeping' as a new word and concept

As far as titles in academic journals go, it’s quite the attention-getter. “There is no such thing as infant sleep, there is no such thing as breastfeeding, there is only breastsleeping,” reads the title of a new peer-reviewed commentary piece by University of Notre Dame anthropologists James McKenna and Lee Gettler that appears in the prestigious European journal Acta Paediatrica.

McKenna and Gettler use the term breastsleeping to refer to bedsharing with breastfeeding in the absence of all known hazardous factors. The researchers hope to legitimize it to accommodate and support the millions of American breastfeeding mothers who bedshare as they better manage their milk supply, get more sleep, strengthen their attachments and validate their roles as mothers, especially if working.