Baby Bonding and Co-sleeping
Sleeping with Your Infant: Looking
at the Facts
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
came out with a news release in May 2002 announcing sleeping
with your infants is unsafe. JPMA (crib industry) offered
their conference as a forum for CPSC to make their announcement & offered
to help finance/ promote continuing promotion of the idea
to doctors & stores.
In addition to the questionable intent
of the report's supporters, the release has left out the
deaths that were diagnosed as SIDS, although the determination
between suffocation and SIDS is often a judgment call. Suffocation
in a crib is more often reported as SIDS, while suffocation
in an adult bed is reported as "death by adult bed."
The other
reason for not investigating the SIDS statistics is that
other studies suggest that SIDS is reduced in babies cosleeping
along with an aware, protective (non-smoking, non-drug-impaired)
mother. Such a study would not sell cribs, or formula.
In
a recent large study conducted in the United Kingdom it was
concluded that:
"Bed sharing with nonsmoking parents was not identified as a risk factor for
SIDS in term infants or in those born weighing at least 2,500 g."
http://www.epediatricnews.com/scripts/om.dll/serve?action=searchDB&searchDBfor=home&id=qp
Attachment Parenting International and
members of the parenting community refute the CPSC's recent
claim that co-sleeping is inherently dangerous. We maintain
that when precautions are followed, co-sleeping with infants
is safe and offers a multitude of benefits for both child
and parent. We urge the CPSC to work to make all sleeping
environments as safe as possible and provide parents with
the information they need to make the decisions which are
best for their family. http://www.attachmentparenting.org/
Holding Preemies is Better for Bonding
and Infant Neurological Development
The
objective of this paper was to examine whether the kangaroo
care (KC) intervention in premature infants affects parent-child
interactions and infant development.
The authors concluded: "Kangaroo Care" (holding
a baby) skin to skin) had a significant positive impact on
the infant's perceptual-cognitive and motor development and
on the parenting process. We speculate that KC has both a
direct impact on infant development by contributing to neurophysiological
organization and an indirect effect by improving parental
mood, perceptions, and interactive behavior.
Although this
study may come as a surprise to the more technical minded
in our society, for others it only substantiates what they
innately knew to be true: of course holding a baby would
have a more positve impact on the mother and infant--ask
the mother --she would have agreed.
Feldman R, Eidelman AI,
Sirota L, Weller A. Comparison
of skin-to-skin (kangaroo) and traditional care: parenting
outcomes and preterm infant development Pediatrics
2002 (Jul); 110 (1 Pt 1): 16-26
Crying for Comfort:
Distressed Babies Need to Be Held
By Aletha Solter
Mothering Magazine Issue 122 (January/February 2004)
The term "cry it out" refers to the practice
of leaving babies in their cribs without picking them up,
and letting them cry themselves to sleep. A modified version
of this approach is to go to the baby every few minutes to
pat her on the back or reassure her verbally (but not pick
the baby up), and to increase the length of time gradually
so that the baby eventually "learns" to fall asleep
alone.
But there is no doubt that repeated lack of responsiveness
to a baby's cries-even for only five minutes at a time-is
potentially damaging to the baby's mental health. Babies
who are left to cry it out alone may fail to develop a basic
sense of trust or an understanding of themselves as a causal
agent, possibly leading to feelings of powerlessness, low
self-esteem, and chronic anxiety later in life. The cry-it-out
approach undermines the very basis of secure attachment,
which requires prompt responsiveness and sensitive attunement
during the first year after birth.
The attachment parenting
movement is a healthy reaction to the harmful promotion of crying it out found
in many parenting books. Attachment parents are aware of the possible emotional
damage from leaving babies to cry alone, so they strive to
meet their babies' needs for physical closeness and responsiveness.
However, attachment parents can overlook the beneficial,
healing function of crying, and believe that their job is
not only to respond to, but to stop all crying. This article
describes how parents can further promote babies' mental
health by learning to recognize stress-release crying, and
implementing what I call the "crying-in-arms" approach.
Read
complete article here: http://www.mothering.com/9-0-0/html/9-1-0/crying-for-comfort.shtml
Always Hands On, Baby
Kangaroo
Care is defined as holding your infant
with skin to skin contact. According to a new study published
in Pediatrics, low birth weight babies benefit from skin
to skin contact. Compared to infants in incubators, newborns
in "kangaroo mother care" had less severe infections,
spent fewer days in the hospital, and had better head
circumferences (a sign of better growth rate). The system,
which involves placing a diaper-clad preemie upright
on his mom's bare chest-tummy to tummy, in between her
breasts, inside her clothing; her body warmth helps stabilize
the baby's temperature and also allows for easier breastfeeding,
was started in Columbia. The system is now being implemented
and tested in neonatal clinics in the US, Canada, and
Europe. Another favorable finding was that the benefits
also extend to adults with moms feeling more empowered
by their hands on responsibility.
Childhood parental
separation experiences and depressive symptomatology
in acute major depression
From the Abstract:
The aim of this study was to examine the pathoplastic effects
of childhood parental separation experiences on depressive
symptoms. Patients with acute major depression were identified
in a large 31-center study of affective disorders in Japan.
Information regarding the patients' childhood losses was
collected using a semistructured interview, and their depressive
symptomatology was assessed by the Center for Epidemiologic
Studies Depression Scale (CES-D).
Patients reported significantly
higher CES-D total scores when they had experienced early object loss of the
same-sex parent. In terms of the CES-D subscores derived by factor
analysis, early object loss significantly aggravated symptoms
that people normally could cope with but could no longer
cope with when depressed (e.g. 'poor appetite', 'cannot shake
off the blues' and 'everything an effort.').
Once depression develops, early object loss may act as a pathoplastic factor
by making it severer especially by rendering people less able to perform what
they normally could do.
Editor's Note:
There is a significant increase in children's depression
and we all know the treatment is a wide array of psychotropic
drugs. As Doctor's of Chiropractic concerned with looking
to the cause rather than treating symptoms, we can help the
families who come to us for care by explaining the importance
of continuous contact with their infants. Natural birth,
skin to skin contact with newborns, breastfeeding, baby carrying,
cosleeping and certainly being with our children for the
first couple of years of life are all important contributors
to a child's ability to develop into physically, emotionally
and socially healthy adults.
References are available on line
at:
http://www.icpa4kids.com/chiropractic_newsletter_references.htm
Ten Principles of Mother-Infant Bonding
for Health,
Happiness and Harmony
By James W. Prescott, Ph.D
I. Every
Pregnancy Is A Wanted Pregnancy. Every Child Is A Wanted Child.
Unwanted children are typically unloved, abused and neglected
who become the next generation of delinquents, violent offenders
and alcohol/drug abusers and addicts.
II. Every Pregnancy
Has Proper Nutrition & Prenatal Care--medical and psychological
-- and is free from alcohol, drugs, tobacco and other harmful
agents of stress.
III. Natural Birthing--avoid
wherever possible obstetrical medications, forceps & induced
labor with no episiotomy nor premature cutting of umbilical
cord. Mother controls birthing position with no separation
of newborn from mother. Newborn maintains intimate body contact
with mother for breastfeeding and nurturance.
IV. No
Circumcision of newborn. The traumatic pain of newborn circumcision
adversely affects normal brain development, impairs affectional
bonding with mother and has long lasting effects upon how pain
and pleasure are experienced in life.
V. Breastfeeding
On Demand by newborn/infant/child and for "two years or beyond",
as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) and
UNICEF. Failure to breastfeed results in positive harm to
normal brain development & to the immunological health
of the newborn, infant and child. Encoding the developing
brain with the smell of mother's body through breastfeeding
is essential for the later development of intimate sexuality.
VI. Intimate Body
Contact is maintained between mother and newborn/infant by
being carried continuously on the body of the mother for
the first year of life. Such continuous gentle body movement
stimulation of the newborn/infant promotes optimal brain
development and "Basic Trust" for peaceful/happy behaviors.
Mother-infant co-sleeping is encouraged for "two years or
beyond". Mother-infant/child body contact can also be optimized
with daily infant/child massage. The Father must also learn
to affectionately bond with his infant and child by being
an additional source of physical affection.
VII. Immediate
Comforting is given to infants and children who are crying.
No infant/child should ever be permitted to cry itself to
sleep.
VIII. Infants and
Children Are For Hugging and should never be physically hit
for any reason. Merging childhood parental love with parental
violent pain helps create adult violent love.
IX. Infants
and Children Are Honored and should never be humiliated nor
emotionally abused for any reason. The emerging sexuality of
every child is respected.
X. Mothers
Must Be Honored and not replaced by Institutional Day Care
which emotionally harms children before three years of age.
Mother-Infant/Child Community Development Centers must replace
Institutionalized Day Care.
THE CHILD IS THE FATHER OF THE MAN
THE CHILD IS THE MOTHER OF
CULTURE
THE CHILD IS THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY
By James W. Prescott, Ph.D.
Institute of Humanistic Science
Touch
the Future: Bonding and Violence
A baby's developing body
and brain mirror and reflect, lifelong, the emotional-sensory
environment provided by its first primary relationship, that
is with its mother. The Origins of Love & Violence (please see
below) take root in this first, primary sensory environment.
What we call "affectional bonding" or nurturing, or its absence--
very early in life--structures the developing brain to interpret
the world and its relationships as peaceful, pleasurable
and loving or hostile, painful and violent depending on trust
or anxiety experienced in this first relationship.
http://montagunocircpetition.org
Links worth visiting:
Benefits
of Co-sleeping
Attachment
Parenting International
THE ORIGINS OF PEACE AND VIOLENCE
Deprivation of Physical Affection as a Main Cause of Depression, Aggression
and Drug Abuse
Rock-A-Bye-Baby:
A Time Life Documentary
Babywearing
Tips
Articles
on the Family Bed
Articles
on co-sleeping