ST. LOUIS -- Babies who are put to sleep in an adult bed face a risk of suffocation that is as much as 40 times greater than babies who sleep in standard cribs, a Saint Louis University researcher says in this month's issue of Pediatrics. "The odds of death go up dramatically among babies who use adult beds," says James Kemp, M.D., one of the researchers and an associate professor of pediatrics at Saint Louis University School of Medicine and director the Sleep Lab at SSM Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital. "The numbers are gigantic, much higher than I had thought. It's the best data available right now." Between 13 and 14 percent of parents say they share beds with their babies. Dr. Kemp calls for a public awareness campaign to alert parents to the dangers of the practice. "Granted, you want to be close to your baby at night time. But we don't think babies should be in adult beds. This has to be a risk assessment and it remains a terrible idea to share an adult bed with a baby." (...) Dr. Kemp says younger infants may be at the greatest risk of death in adult beds because they lack the motor skills to escape potential threats to their safety, such as soft bedding or being trapped between the bed and the wall.