The real story behind the hospital co-sleeper bed that’s going viral

If you’ve had a baby in a hospital you know that those first few nights can be really hard. There are so many benefits for babies sharing rooms with their mamas (as opposed to being shipped off to those old-school, glassed-in nurseries) but tired mamas have a lot of conflicting messages coming at them.

You’re told to bond with your baby, but not to fall asleep with them in the bed, and to let them rest in their bassinet. But when you’re recovering from something that is (at best) the most physically demanding thing a person can do or (at worst) major surgery, moving your baby back and forth from bed to bassinette all night long sure doesn’t sound like fun.

That’s why this photo of a co-sleeping hospital bed is going viral again, four years after it was first posted by Australian parenting site Belly Belly. The photo continues to attract attention because the bed design is enviable, but is it real? And if so, why aren’t more hospitals using it?

The bed is real, and it’s Dutch. The photo originated from Gelderse Vallei hospital. As GoodHouskeeping reported back in 2015, the clip-on co-sleepers were introduced as a way to help mom and baby pairs who needed extended hospital stays—anything beyond one night in the maternity ward.

Plenty of moms stateside wish we had such beds in our maternity wards, but as but Dr. Iffath Hoskins, an OB-GYN, told Yahoo Parenting in 2015, the concept wouldn’t be in line with American hospitals’ safe sleeping policies.

“If the mother rolls over from exhaustion, there would be the risk of smothering the baby,” she told Yahoo. “The mother’s arm could go into that space in her sleep and cover the baby, or she could knock a pillow to the side and it’s on the baby.”

Hoskins also believes that having to get in and out of bed to get to your baby in the night is good for moms who might be otherwise reluctant to move while recovering from C-sections. If you don’t move, the risk of blood clots in the legs increases. “An advantage of being forced to get up for the baby is that it forces the mother to move her legs — it’s a big plus. However painful it can be, it’s important for new moms to move rather than remaining in their hospital beds.”

So there you have it. The viral photo is real, but don’t expect those beds to show up in American maternity wards any time soon.

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