Hi Segev!
     How wonderful to have you on the net all the way from Israel? What
part of the country do you live in?  I visited your beautiful land in 1975
when my husband and I went on our pilgrimage to the Baha'i World
Center...the gardens on Mount Carmel are so beautiful and have a great view
of the bay in Haifa.

Here in Mexico ALL babies are routinely swaddled from birth, both in
home-births and in hospitals. They lovingly call it "making the babies into
tacos" - a taco being a corn tortilla, filled with just about anything good
to eat, and rolled up like a tube. I realize that most of the gals on-line
already know what a "taco" is...but this description is for those of you
who aren't close to the TEX-MEX food culture. Segev, you might liken a taco
to your falafels in Israel, no?

Here in Yucatan the people feel that swaddling is absolutely necessary
because if your don't wrap the baby, he "gets scared or frightened"...this
assumption drawn from the (normal !) neurological reaction to jerk his/her
arms, legs, etc. as a reaction to any stimuli...the Moro reflex. Is this
correctly spelled in English? (in Spanish it is called "el reflejo de
Moro")
I try to explain that this  jerking motion of the baby is a normal
response, and thus, swaddling is not necessary ...but changing cultural
customs is not a simply process.

Thank heavens the babies finally impose their own will...by struggling to
get their little arms out of the sheets they are wrapped in.  I hear
mothers say,
"Try as hard as I may, the baby always frees his arms." Bravo for the baby!

Greetings to all -

Roberta


Roberta

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