Karen et al -
This is an article about Dr. Common's sleep research.  My husband and I are
both Harvard alums and we still have friends there.  I'll see if I can track
this man down and I'll let you know if I do.
Cynthia D. Payne
LLL of Berkshire County MA
************************************************
Stressed Babies May be Prone to Trouble Later
 By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

 PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Psychiatrists said Tuesday there
 may be a physical basis linking stressed-out babies to personality
 disorders in adulthood.

 Babies who are made to sleep alone or are not picked up and
 comforted enough may grow up susceptible to post-traumatic
 stress disorder (PTSD) and personality problems, said Dr.
 Michael Commons of the Harvard Medical School, and
 colleagues.

 The idea that babies need physical contact is not new -- that is
 why they are no longer swaddled in tight blankets and left to cry
 for hours. But researchers speaking at the annual meeting of the
 American Association for the Advancement of Science said they
 were starting to find evidence of physical changes in the brain
 caused by stress in infancy.

 "Parents in most cultures have infants sleep with them," Commons
 told a news conference. "As an infant, sleeping by yourself is very
 stressful. We can see this because infants cry."

 Scientists have also found levels of the stress hormone cortisol to
 be much higher in crying babies. Commons suggested that constant
 stimulation by cortisol in infancy caused physical changes in the
 brain.

 "It makes you more prone to the effects of stress, more prone to
 illness including mental illness and makes it harder to recover from
 illness," Commons said. "These are real changes and they don't go
 away."

 He said his team was doing studies with Kenyans, people of
 Mayan descent and residents of Boston.

 In the West, children are encouraged to be self-sufficient and face
 danger alone. "They don't have the emotional resources to seek
 comfort and consoling and the experience becomes unspeakable,"
 Commons said.

 Other cultures teach infants to stay close and look to others for
 emotional and physical support, he said.

 "The infants sleep touching the parents," he said. "They are carried
 around touching the parent or some family member."

 Commons cited theories that such constant support kept down
 levels of cortisol, and helped the cortical structures in the brain
 develop better.

 He said illnesses such as PTSD and phobias, on the rise in
 industrialized countries such as the United States, barely existed in
 more primitive societies.

 But Commons conceded he had no proof of his theory, although
 he planned more tests such as PET scans, which can show blood
 flow in the brain and indicate what structures in the brain are
 working.

 But he said parents should think carefully about how they treat
 infants. "I think infants should be rubbed and hugged and kissed,"
 he said. Children in day care should not be put to sleep in separate
 cribs, he said. "They should sleep touching each other."

 Commons conceded the growing prevalence of post-traumatic
 stress disorder could be because it had become fashionable to talk
 about.

 "I think the cultural fad of PTSD is probably a slight, slight
 overreaction," he said. "But I work in a mental hospital and clinical
 instances of PTSD and phobia are just way, way up. I think there's
 a strong organic basis."