Abstract
Co-bedding twins is the practice of placing siblings in the same crib or bed. The objective of this study was to find out how frequently co-bedding was practiced at home among Malaysian twins. Moreover, parents’ knowledge and satisfaction was measured. Developmental mill-stones and sleeping pattern of twins were compared between those who practiced co-bedding versus those who did not.
Method: This is a cross-sectional comparative study. Parents of registered twins aged below 18 were interviewed to collect data on 204 Malaysian twins including socio-demographic characteristics, sleeping pattern and developmental millstones of twins as well as parent’s knowledge and satisfaction with co-bedding.
Result: Eighty nine percent of twins were co-bedded during their infancy and childhood. More than 90% of parents considered co-bedding as safe and believed it had a positive effect on psychological wellbeing of their twins (89.2%). No significant difference was found be-tween co-bedded and separately bedded twins in terms of their developmental millstones. Duration of sleep was described as complete for 89% of co-bedded twins with similar fre-quency of wakening between the two understudy groups (P=0.258).
conclusion: Co-bedding is considered a safe practice at home and carries a high satisfaction rate among parents of twins. Randomized controlled studies are warranted to investigate the long-term benefits of co-bedding at home.
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Copyright
© 2012, Author(s). This open-access article is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which allows for unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original work is properly cited.