Re both bed-sharing and weight gain in breastfed babies, we need to always
be vigilant to what is really being said. To wit, when the AAP official
statement on co-sleeping says:
"Also, it should be noted that no benefits have been shown for infants
sleeping with individuals other than the mother".
This makes it sound as though these studies have been done, and the effects
of mother-infant co-sleeping (synchronizing heart rate, respiration, brain
waves, sleep states and arousals) don't appear when the child is sleeping
with someone other than mother. IN REALITY, NO ONE HAS STUDIED ADULT-CHILD
SLEEP OTHER THAN JAMES MCKENNA AND HE USES MOTHER-CHILD PAIRS, AND AT LEAST
WHILE HE LIVED IN CALIFORNIA, ALL HIS RESEARCH SUBJECTS WERE HISPANIC, AND
THE BABIES WERE ALL 4 MONTHS OLD. So you could just as easily claim that
no benefits have been shown for African-American or European-American
mother-infant pairs, or that no benefits have been shown for children older
or younger than 4 months. No benefits have been shown for other than
mother-child sleep because no studies have been done. And we can also say
that no benefits have been shown for solitary sleeping arrangements.
Likewise, to say that the breastfed children in the DARLING study show a
slow down in growth during the second half of the first year is true. But
what it leaves out is that these were mostly 3- or 4-hour schedule-fed
babies who slept in cribs in another room. We do not know how
cue/demand-fed, co-sleeping breastfed babies grow, because no one has
studied them yet. I suspect they grow much better than schedule-fed,
solitary sleeping babies. McKenna's work shows that co-sleeping babies
breastfeed more than solitary sleeping babies. . . . . . and Woolridge's
work shows that the more often you nurse, the greater the fat content of
the milk. Logic suggests that the DARLING babies may be showing growth
faltering from not nursing often enough, especially at night, and from
sleeping through the night earlier than they really should be, and
therefore missing feedings.
Caveat emptor. Or something like that.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D. email:
[log in to unmask]
Anthropology Department phone: (409) 845-5256
Texas A&M University fax: (409) 845-4070
College Station, TX 77843-4352
http://www.prairienet.org/laleche/dettwyler.html
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