At 06:31 PM 4/24/01 -0400, you wrote:
>In Pat's list of the side-effects of back sleeping (I had no idea!!), she
>lists:
>
>>no crawling
Kathy, as I wrote my post, I remembered your previous posts about the
crawling issue. The babies that you are reporting on do not lie on their
backs or in "buckets" all day and night. "They are 'in arms' or on
someone's back" and those positions will strengthen their necks properly.
Often the baby's neck is not overly supported.
In a culture where babies are not held as much as you are speaking of, they
will turn from back to frone, raise their heads and crawl, and while doing
so, they will strengthen their neck muscles which is important for
development and for support of the vertebrae.
You state that they are never placed on their stomachs. They sleep on their
sides or backs. Yes, they sleep on side-back-other side-back,side-on and on
through the night, so that their heads aren't permanently molded from just
the back. Those babies do what any breastfeeding baby sleeping with mother
does--feeds on one side, rolls to back for a while, feeds other side, rolls
on back.
But if a breastfed baby is fed in a chair, placed on her back on a hard
crib mattress (perhaps turing her head one direction all of the time),
repeating this all night, then during the day she is on that same mattress
or other hard surface or in a "seat"-- her head will be terribly flat. And
her neck will be terribly weak.
But not to worry. Here comes the helmet or head brace company that will
re-mold your baby's head again. It takes only a few months. And if baby has
torticolis from her choice of neck position all of the time, there is
physical therapy for that while she wears her brace. (I had a client whose
baby had this very situation.)
All of this because people wanted to look at sleep position instead of
nutitional/immune affects on SIDS cases.
Pat Gima, IBCLC
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
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