I have an editorial piece in today's online issue of the British Medical Journal. Hopefully some of you might find it useful. 

Supporting parents who are worried about their newborn’s sleep

Clinicians can help to reframe expectations of “normal” and support parents to develop coping strategies

Parents of new babies often struggle with the problems of interrupted sleep, particularly when contemporary lifestyles, parental sleep needs, and infant biology conflict.1 Recent trends in Western infant care have led to misperceptions of normal infant sleep development. When we ask whether a young baby “sleeps through the night” this reinforces the idea that prolonged infant sleep is important and should be achieved early. It also does not recognise the role of night feeding in successful breast feeding because breastfed babies wake more often during the night than those who are not breast fed.2 Consequently, what we tell parents about normal infant sleep, and how we provide support, requires reframing. [...continues]

BMJ version is here: http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f2344?etoc=, but if you need a non-pay option for accessing the full text you can find it on my website here: http://www.dur.ac.uk/sleep.lab/insidethesleeplab/news/

If you agree with what I have to say, or would say something else/more (I was allowed only 800 words, and it had to be linked to a BMJ research paper) please consider posting a response on the BMJ website. The case is more compelling if I don't appear to be a voice in the wilderness :)

Thank you, Helen

Professor Helen Ball
Department of of Anthropology, Durham University
T:0191 334 1602 F:0191 334 1615 E:[log in to unmask]
www.dur.ac.uk/anthropology; www.dur.ac.uk/sleep.lab
http://about.me/Helen.Ball
__________________________
Infant Sleep Information Source
www.isisonline.org.uk

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