Officials highlight dangers of co-sleeping with babies

Hours after childbirth, Erin Maher lay in bed at Nassau University Medical Center holding her newborn daughter Samantha close when a nurse asked to take the child to the hospital nursery.

"I just kept her on my chest," Maher said. "They kept trying to take her away but I wasn't being separated."

Since then, Maher, 33, of Farmingdale, has rarely spent a night in a different bed than her now 4-year-old daughter, joining other mothers on Long Island and nationwide who sleep with their infant children -- a practice Maher and others say makes breast-feeding easier, helps them sleep and strengthens the child-mother bond.