On the issue of swaddling, I am compelled to jump in here and comment about
the following statement from a previous post:

"Swaddling also helps keep co-sleeping babies from scooting around in your
bed and lodging on a pillow or falling off."

In the course of our research we have studied lots of videos of bed-sharing
babies in recent years and we always emphatically recommend against
swaddling babies who are sleeping in their parents' bed. A baby with his/her
arms and legs unimpeded can and will alert you to their presence if you
inadvertently get too close. A swaddled baby cannot. Nor can he/she root
effectively or locate the breast without assistance. I have described on
this list previously how breastfeeding moms sleep curled around their babies
in a protective position that very effectively prevents babies from scooting
around the bed, getting into pillows, and falling off the bed. Such babies
are enclosed in their mother's arms. Why would they need enclosing in
anything else?

Both UNICEF and Royal College of Midwives guidelines for safe bed-sharing
here in UK recommend against swaddling a baby in its parents' bed (but then
I had a hand in both sets of guidelines -- so I suppose they would, wouldn't
they!).

Regards,
Helen
________________
Dr Helen Ball
Director, Parent-Infant Sleep Lab, Dept. Anthropology, University of Durham,
UK

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html