Birth Dilation via Halloween Pumpkins

Labor dilation demonstrated by carved pumpkins.

One fabulous, fun way to demo dilation ala pumpkins! ๐Ÿงก๐ŸŽƒ

This dilation pumpkin set-up was created by workers at the Royal Oldham Hospital in Greater Manchester, Lancashire, England as part of a pumpkin decorating competition.

We just love it!

Happy Halloween!


Royal Oldham Hospital Midwives


Related Community Groups: 

Birthing (more holistic)

Pregnant Moms Due This Year (more mainstream)

Peaceful Parenting Community

Saving Our Sons Community

Intact: Healthy, Happy, Whole

CoSleeping

Breastfeeding

Dilation stages during labor.

Before your baby arrives, research everything!

Circumcised babies may have trouble bonding

By Dave Yasvinski for Healthing.ca 
Read more from Yasvinski


Circumcising newborn babies may lead to a host of issues later in life, including difficulty bonding and handling stressful situations, a new study has found.

The medical procedure — usually performed on males within the first few days of life for religious, social or cultural reasons — has real ramifications despite making for difficult dinner conversation, said Michael Winterdahl, one of the study’s authors and an associate professor at Aarhus University in Denmark.

“We wanted to challenge the assumption that there are no delayed consequences of infant circumcision apart from the purely physical because of the absence of foreskin,” he said. “Our findings are especially interesting for coming parents who want to make an informed choice about circumcision on behalf of their child, but are also directed at anyone who wishes to see more light shed on a very taboo topic that often drowns in an emotional discussion.”

To test their theory, researchers enlisted 619 American men — 408 circumcised and 211 still in their natural state — and had them complete a series of questionnaires that tested their ability to handle stress and bond with others.

“The study showed that men who had undergone circumcision as an infant found it more difficult to bond with their partner and were more emotionally unstable, while the study did not find differences in empathy or trust,” Winterdahl said. “Infant circumcision was also associated with stronger sexual drive as well as a lower stress threshold.

“We know from previous studies that the combination of attachment to a partner and emotional stability is important in order to be able to maintain a healthy relationship, and thus family structure, and a lack of such, may lead to frustration and possibly less restricted sexual behaviour,” he said.

The stress experienced by circumcised infants only reveals itself in adulthood in the form of these altered behaviours, the researchers said. While the behavioural changes are not pathological, or indicative of illness, they have implications on a global level.

“Our study says something about differences at population level, not about individuals,” Winterdahl said. “It’s important to remember that as individuals, we vary enormously in virtually all parameters — also in how we bond with our partner, for example.”

Breastfeeding / Circumcision informational cards

Canada’s current circumcision rate is 32 per cent, according to a study by a group of Saskatchewan researchers that found the status of the father’s foreskin to be the single most important factor in determining whether or not his newborn would also have the procedure. Overall, 56 per cent of those polled said they would consider circumcision if they had a son. In situations where the father was circumcised, that number rose to 82 per cent; where the father was not circumcised, the number dropped to 15 per cent.

While conflicting information about the potential health benefits of circumcision has stirred a long and heated debate on its necessity, the Canadian Paediatric Society updated its policy in 2015 to offer a more neutral stance than its 1996 guidance that advised against the procedure. “The main thing that has changed between now and then is there is convincing evidence that circumcision can actually prevent HIV,” said Dr. Joan Robinson, a pediatric infectious disease specialist in Edmonton.

“I think for most parents, it’s basically a cosmetic procedure, unless you’re part of a religion that insists that you have to have it done,” she said.


Related: 

Saving Our Sons Community

Intact: Healthy, Happy, Whole

Should I Circumcise? The pros and cons 

Intact Care

SavingSons.org

IntactHealth.org



Intact Care of Elderly Men in Nursing Homes

By K.L. Damon, NP  © 2010
Medical Professionals for Genital Autonomy


The majority of men worldwide are happily intact for a lifetime, and these numbers continue to rise each year with education and awareness raising among the United States' population. Today, not only do most parents keep their children intact regardless of their nationality, but also more Jews, Muslims, and Christians opt to protect their sons as they come into this world - perfectly intact. 

Because most men have normal (intact) genitals across the globe, male development and intact care is also taken as a given - almost commonsense. Parents know not to retract until a child does so on his own, physicians are not engaged in premature or forced retraction of their patients, and the foreskin is left alone to do its job. There is no more meddling with a male child's foreskin than there is with a female child's foreskin (her clitoral hood). Neither is disturbed with retraction, soap, or "cleaning." The foreskin is regarded as useful - some say "the best part" of the genitals. And as a result, children grow into adults who are able to enjoy their full, functioning genitals for a lifetime. In most of the world today, when a man becomes an older adult it is common knowledge that care of his genitals does not change - a warm water bath or shower is sufficient for cleanliness. Should he enter assisted living care, his nursing staff is familiar with the foreskin, as it is something all humans have, and it is seen as just another normal body part.


In the United States, however, we tend to observe a different picture of nursing home care for our elderly, intact men, than the rest of the world sees. Here, nursing staff working in assisted care facilities are not routinely trained in the correct care of an intact man, and have often grown up in the midst of a cutting culture, where foreskin is yet to be well understood, known, or appreciated. As a result, this organ is seen problematic and U.S. based nursing personnel come up with a host of bizarre, mythological notions about its care. 

After working for 14 years at a well respected nursing home facility outside Madison, Wisconsin, I've come to find that the vast majority of these rumors about intact adult men are quickly put to rest with some very simple, very basic, facts on the care of elderly men. I am writing here to share these with the hope that it will make things easier for nursing staff, and the men in our care. 

How to clean the intact genitals of an elderly man in assisted living

1) Have the patient enter a warm water-only bath or shower in your facility.

2) Gently run warm water over the outside of his penis and scrotum. Using the hand cloths typically used for baths in your care facility, without soap, run your hand cloth along the groin, scrotum, and exterior of the penis to ensure it is fully washed with warm water only.

3) Gently retract the penis while it is either submerged in warm water, or while warm (not hot!) water is running over it. This keeps the tissues relaxed and does not cause a sudden change in temperature for an elderly gentleman who is sensitive to such things. While the foreskin is retracted, run warm water (no soap) over the interior parts of the penis for about 5-10 seconds, or gently 'swish' in warm water if this man is submerged in a bath, for the same 5-10 seconds.

4) Gently move the foreskin back down over the end of the penis, keeping it in warm, clean water (or under warm running water if in a shower and not a bath). Keeping the penis in warm water allows the tissues to remain relaxed and easily moved.

5) After this is complete, move on to using soap for the buttocks and scrotum, and other parts of the body where soap is justified. Soap does not need to come into direct contact with the intact penis, and the foreskin does best when it does not have soap applied to it. Soap interferes with pH and microflora of the penis and foreskin, and increases the likelihood of future issues, especially when it is placed inside the penis (i.e. when the foreskin is retracted). Ensure all soap used on other parts of the body is rinsed clean with warm running water at the end of the bath -- be diligent that a man is not left unrinsed, or sitting in soap suds.

That's it! Task complete.

If this warm, water-only rinse for 10 seconds is done once or twice each week, the foreskin will maintain its normal form and function, and all will be well. If you notice irritation or inflammation occur on the genitals, or other parts of the body, Calmoseptine is the best choice of ointment to quickly soothe and alleviate such things. Apply through gentle dabbing on any red, irritated, or inflamed areas of the genitals. If the sore area is on the penis itself, apply Calmoseptine to the outside only of the penis -- do not apply under the foreskin. It will work its own way inside. 

One quick note should be added about the difference in care between an elderly man who has been retracting his entire life, versus a pediatric patient. If you switch your location of nursing care to working with children, instead of adult men, know that retraction should not take place in the normal care of a baby or child. For an infant or child, wash with warm water (or a wet wipe) only on the outside of the penis and foreskin. Never retract a baby or child. The foreskin is tightly adhered to the glans (head) and shaft of the penis through most of babyhood and childhood. Only later (average age 10.5 years) does retraction begin to naturally occur. If a child has his foreskin retracted by someone else it can cause tearing, bleeding, scarring, adhesions, and problems later in life. This is more often the case if retraction is a repeated occurrence. Retraction is a sexual function, and it is not something that need occur before puberty. Some young men do not retract until even later (or never fully retract at all) and this is also within a normal range of development. Find further intact care information of children from four of the major pediatric health organizations at the bottom of the Physicians' Do Not Retract page at Saving Our Sons


Nursing Home Myths and Facts

Myth: Elderly intact men need to be circumcised at alarming numbers because it is so difficult to clean, and/or the foreskin becomes problematic in older age. 

Fact: Only in the United States do we hear such nonsense. I have served with Mercy Ships overseas, as well as in elderly care settings as a volunteer aid worker in three other (primarily intact) nations, and not once did someone suggest that the intact man was difficult to clean, or that his foreskin would ever become problematic. In fact, when I brought this up on a couple occasions to see what my fellow care givers responses would be, they looked at me as though I had two heads. Across the rest of the globe, elderly care facilities (what we typically refer to as nursing homes) are present, but never are nursing staff heard complaining about the normal male body, its care, or its (mythological) demise. 

It is true that nursing programs (and medical school programs) in the United States have a long way to go in teaching proper intact care and development. In fact, it was not once mentioned throughout the programs I attended, other than a brief "retract when you need to clean if a pediatric patient is not circumcised" (false information, by the way). However, a problem with care, and lack of training in nursing school, is not a problem with foreskin. Instead of demonizing the normal male body, we can simply take an easy step in teaching staff at nursing homes proper intact care --- and then all will be well, and these mythical problems will not arise. 


It is quite problematic given the above points to consider amputating the prepuce (an organ that holds purpose) from a baby boy who has yet to arrive into this world, based solely on nursing home rumors and myths in the United States. We know the numbers of boys remaining intact today are on the rise. Surely by the time my son would reach "nursing home age," the cultural climate and nursing know-how in the United States will catch up with the rest of the world.

In addition, it is very likely that my son will never even reside in a nursing home. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, just over 5% of the population in the United States age 65+ occupy nursing homes, congregate care, assisted living, and board-and-care homes; and about 4.2% of those age 65+ are in nursing homes at any given time. [Source: 65+ in the United States Census Report] This is not very many!

If, by some chance, my son is in the 4-5% of men who reside in a nursing home, it will likely be 65-95 years from now. Consider for a moment just how much the world has changed in the last ~75 years. Life is significantly different in 2010 than it was in 1935. Surely, we will continue to progress in our quality of care going forward, especially with the countless numbers of medical professionals for genital autonomy who are speaking up and taking steps to educate fellow colleagues, and medical and nursing school students who come after them. We will see new care facilities, new training, new technology, new standards, and protocols and ways of doing things.

Trust that your son's body knows how to function perfectly for a lifetime, and that elderly life in the U.S. will continue to improve (not decline) in the next 65-100 years. Trust that just as intact men enjoy their full genitals in 70+% of the world today, so will your son enjoy his for a lifetime.


Related Reading

Intact Care Resource Page
http://www.DrMomma.org/2009/06/how-to-care-for-intact-penis-protect.html
Adult Care of the Intact Penis
http://www.SavingSons.org/2015/09/adult-intact-penis-care.html

How to put a condom on an intact man
http://www.SavingSons.org/2017/09/how-to-put-condom-on-intact-penis.html

Registered Nurses on Circumcision (Resources)
http://www.DrMomma.org/2014/01/registered-nurses-on-circumcision.html
Medical Professionals for Genital Autonomy page
FB.com/IntactCare

Intact: Healthy, Happy, Whole Community 
FB.com/groups/IntactHealthy

Saving Our Sons Community 
FB.com/groups/SavingOurSons

Peaceful Intact Education group
FB.com/groups/PeacefulEducation







Why African Babies Don't Cry

By J. Claire K. Niala
Read more from Niala at In Culture Parent


Why African Babies Don't Cry

I was born and grew up in Kenya and Cote d’Ivoire. From the age of fifteen I lived in the UK. However, I always knew that I wanted to raise my children (whenever I had them) at home in Kenya. And yes, I assumed I was going to have them. I am a modern African woman, with two university degrees, and a fourth generation working woman – but when it comes to children, I am typically African. The assumption remains that you are not complete without them; children are a blessing which would be crazy to avoid. Actually the question does not even arise.

I started my pregnancy in the UK. The urge to deliver at home was so strong that I sold my practice, setup a new business and moved house and country within five months of finding out I was pregnant. I did what most expectant mothers in the UK do – I read voraciously: Our Babies, Ourselves, Unconditional Parenting, anything by Sears – the list goes on. (My grandmother later commented that babies don’t read books and really all I needed to do was “read” my baby). Everything I read said that African babies cried less than European babies. I was intrigued as to why.

photo by Andy Graham

When I went home, I observed. I looked out for mothers and babies and they were everywhere, though very young African ones, under six weeks, were mainly at home. The first thing I noticed is that despite their ubiquitousness, it is actually quite difficult to actually “see” a Kenyan baby. They are usually incredibly well wrapped up before being carried or strapped onto their mother (sometimes father). Even older babies strapped onto a back are further protected from the elements by a large blanket. You would be lucky to catch sight of a limb, never mind an eye or nose. The wrapping is a womb-like replication. The babies are literally cocooned from the stresses of the outside world into which they are entering.

My second observation was a cultural one. In the UK, it was understood that babies cry. In Kenya, it was quite the opposite. The understanding is that babies don’t cry. If they do – something is horribly wrong and something must be done to rectify it immediately. My English sister-in-law summarized it well. “People here,” she said, “really don’t like babies crying, do they?”

It all made much more sense when I finally delivered and my grandmother came from the village to visit. As it happened, my baby did cry a fair amount. Exasperated and tired, I forgot everything I had ever read and sometimes joined in the crying too. Yet for my grandmother it was simple, “Nyonyo (breastfeed her)!” It was her answer to every single peep.

There were times when it was a wet nappy, or that I had put her down, or that she needed burping, but mainly she just wanted to be at the breast – it didn’t really matter whether she was feeding or just having a comfort moment. I was already wearing her most of the time and co-sleeping with her, so this was a natural extension to what we were doing.


I suddenly learned the not-so-difficult secret of the joyful silence of African babies. It was a simple needs-met symbiosis that required a total suspension of ideas of what should be happening and an embracing of what was actually going on in that moment. The bottom line was that my baby fed a lot – far more than I had ever read about and at least five times as much as some of the stricter feeding schedules I had seen.

At about four months, when a lot of urban mothers start to introduce solids as previous guidelines had recommended, my daughter returned to newborn-style hourly breastfeeding, which was a total shock. Over the past four months, the time between feeds had slowly started to increase. I had even started to treat the odd patient without my breasts leaking or my daughter’s nanny interrupting the session to let me know my daughter needed a feed.

Most of the mothers in my mother and baby group had duly started to introduce baby rice (to stretch the feeds) and all the professionals involved in our children’s lives – pediatricians, even doulas, said that this was ok. Mothers needed rest too, we had done amazingly to get to four months exclusively breastfeeding, and they assured us our babies would be fine. Something didn’t ring true for me and even when I tried, half-heartedly, to mix some pawpaw (the traditional weaning food in Kenya) with expressed milk and offer it to my daughter, she was having none of it.

 photo by H. Anenden

So I called my grandmother. She laughed and asked if I had been reading books again. She carefully explained how breastfeeding was anything but linear. “She’ll tell you when she’s ready for food – and her body will too.”

“What will I do until then?” I was eager to know.

“You do what you did before, regular nyonyo.” So my life slowed down to what felt like a standstill again. While many of my contemporaries marveled at how their children were sleeping longer now that they had introduced baby rice and were even venturing to other foods, I was waking hourly or every two hours with my daughter and telling patients that the return to work wasn’t panning out quite as I had planned.

I soon found that quite unwittingly, I was turning into an informal support service for other urban mothers. My phone number was doing the rounds and many times while I was feeding my baby I would hear myself uttering the words, “Yes, just keep feeding him/ her. Yes, even if you have just fed them. Yes, you might not even manage to get out of your pajamas today. Yes, you still need to eat and drink like a horse. No, now might not be the time to consider going back to work if you can afford not to.” And finally, I assured mothers, “It will get easier.” I had to just trust this last one as it hadn’t gotten easier for me, yet.

A week or so before my daughter turned five months, we traveled to the UK for a wedding and for her to meet family and friends. Because I had very few other demands, I easily kept up her feeding schedule. Despite the disconcerted looks of many strangers as I fed my daughter in many varied public places (most designated breastfeeding rooms were in restrooms which I just could not bring myself to use), we carried on.

At the wedding, the people whose table we sat at noted, “She is such an easy baby – though she does feed a lot.” I kept my silence. Another lady commented, “Though I did read somewhere that African babies don’t cry much.” I could not help but laugh.

My Grandmother’s gentle wisdom:

1. Offer the breast every single moment that your baby is upset – even if you have just fed her.

2. Co-sleep. Many times you can feed your baby before they are fully awake, which will allow them to go back to sleep easier and get you more rest.

3. Always take a flask of warm water to bed with you at night to keep you hydrated and the milk flowing.

4. Make feeding your priority (especially during growth spurts) and get everyone else around you to do as much as they can for you. There is very little that cannot wait.

Read your baby, not the books. Breastfeeding is not linear – it goes up and down and also in circles. You are the expert on your baby’s needs.

photo by E.B. Sylvester

Dr. J. Claire K. Niala is a mother, writer and osteopath who enjoys exploring the differences that thankfully still exist between various cultures around the world. She was born in Kenya and grew up in Kenya, Cote d'Ivoire and the UK. She has worked and lived on three continents and has visited at least one new country every year since she was 12 years old. Her favorite travel companions are her mother and daughter whose stories and interest in others bring her to engage with the world in ways she would have never imagined. Read more from Niala at In Culture Parent.

~~~~

Cosleeping and Biological Imperatives: Why Human Babies Do Not and Should Not Sleep Alone

By James J. McKenna Ph.D.
Edmund P. Joyce C.S.C. Chair in Anthropology

Director,
Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory
University of Notre Dame




Where a baby sleeps is not as simple as current medical discourse and recommendations against cosleeping in some western societies want it to be. And there is good reason why. I write here to explain why the pediatric recommendations on forms of cosleeping such as bedsharing will and should remain mixed. I will also address why the majority of new parents practice intermittent bedsharing despite governmental and medical warnings against it.

Definitions are important here. The term cosleeping refers to any situation in which a committed adult caregiver, usually the mother, sleeps within close enough proximity to her infant so that each, the mother and infant, can respond to each other’s sensory signals and cues. Room sharing is a form of cosleeping, always considered safe and always considered protective. But it is not the room itself that it is protective. It is what goes on between the mother (or father) and the infant that is. Medical authorities seem to forget this fact. This form of cosleeping is not controversial and is recommended by all.
Unfortunately, the terms cosleeping, bedsharing and a well-known dangerous form of cosleeping, couch or sofa cosleeping, are mostly used interchangeably by medical authorities, even though these terms need to be kept separate. It is absolutely wrong to say, for example, that “cosleeping is dangerous” when roomsharing is a form of cosleeping and this form of cosleeping (as at least three epidemiological studies show) reduce an infant’s chances of dying by one half.

Bedsharing is another form of cosleeping which can be made either safe or unsafe, but it is not intrinsically one nor the other. Couch or sofa cosleeping is, however, intrinsically dangerous as babies can and do all too easily get pushed against the back of the couch by the adult, or flipped face down in the pillows, to suffocate.

Often news stories talk about “another baby dying while cosleeping” but they fail to distinguish between what type of cosleeping was involved and, worse, what specific dangerous factor might have actually been responsible for the baby dying. A specific example is whether the infant was sleeping prone next to their parent, which is an independent risk factor for death regardless of where the infant was sleeping. Such reports inappropriately suggest that all types of cosleeping are the same, dangerous, and all the practices around cosleeping carry the same high risks, and that no cosleeping environment can be made safe.

Nothing can be further from the truth. This is akin to suggesting that because some parents drive drunk with their infants in their cars, unstrapped into car seats, and because some of these babies die in car accidents that nobody can drive with babies in their cars because obviously car transportation for infants is fatal. You see the point.

One of the most important reasons why bedsharing occurs, and the reason why simple declarations against it will not eradicate it, is because sleeping next to one’s baby is biologically appropriate, unlike placing infants prone to sleep or putting an infant in a room to sleep by itself. This is particularly so when bedsharing is associated with breast feeding.
When done safely, mother-infant cosleeping saves infants lives and contributes to infant and maternal health and well being. Merely having an infant sleeping in a room with a committed adult caregiver (cosleeping) reduces the chances of an infant dying from SIDS or from an accident by one half!

Research

In Japan where co-sleeping and breastfeeding (in the absence of maternal smoking) is the cultural norm, rates of the sudden infant death syndrome are the lowest in the world. For breastfeeding mothers, bedsharing makes breastfeeding much easier to manage and practically doubles the amount of breastfeeding sessions while permitting both mothers and infants to spend more time asleep. The increased exposure to mother’s antibodies which comes with more frequent nighttime breastfeeding can potentially, per any given infant, reduce infant illness. And because co-sleeping in the form of bedsharing makes breastfeeding easier for mothers, it encourages them to breastfeed for a greater number of months, according to Dr. Helen Ball’s studies at the University of Durham, therein potentially reducing the mothers chances of breast cancer. Indeed, the benefits of cosleeping helps explain why simply telling parents never to sleep with baby is like suggesting that nobody should eat fats and sugars since excessive fats and sugars lead to obesity and/or death from heart disease, diabetes or cancer. Obviously, there’s a whole lot more to the story.

As regards bedsharing, an expanded version of its function and effects on the infant’s biology helps us to understand not only why the bedsharing debate refuses to go away, but why the overwhelming majority of parents in the United States (over 50% according to the most recent national survey) now sleep in bed for part or all of the night with their babies.

That the highest rates of bedsharing worldwide occur alongside the lowest rates of infant mortality, including Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) rates, is a point worth returning to. It is an important beginning point for understanding the complexities involved in explaining why outcomes related to bedsharing (recall, one of many types of cosleeping) vary between being protective for some populations and dangerous for others. It suggests that whether or not babies should bedshare and what the outcome will be may depend on who is involved, under what condition it occurs, how it is practiced, and the quality of the relationship brought to the bed to share. This is not the answer some medical authorities are looking for, but it certainly resonates with parents, and it is substantiated by scores of studies.

Understanding Recommendations

Recently, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) SIDS Sub-Committee for whom I served (ad hoc) as an expert panel member recommended that babies should sleep close to their mothers in the same room but not in the same bed. While I celebrated this historic roomsharing recommendation, I disagreed with and worry about the ramifications of the unqualified recommendation against any and all bedsharing. Further, I worry about the message being given unfairly (if not immorally) to mothers; that is, no matter who you are, or what you do, your sleeping body is no more than an inert potential lethal weapon against which neither you nor your infant has any control. If this were true, none of us humans would be here today to have this discussion because the only reason why we survived is because our ancestral mothers slept alongside us and breastfed us through the night!

I am not alone in thinking this way. The Academy of Breast Feeding Medicine, the USA Breast Feeding Committee, the Breast Feeding section of the American Academy of Pediatrics, La Leche League International, UNICEF and WHO are all prestigious organizations who support bedsharing and which use the best and latest scientific information on what makes mothers and babies safe and healthy. Clearly, there is no scientific consensus.

What we do agree on, however, is what specific “factors” increase the chances of SIDS in a bedsharing environment, and what kinds of circumstances increase the chances of suffocation either from someone in the bed or from the bed furniture itself. For example, adults should not bedshare if inebriated or if desensitized by drugs, or overly exhausted, and other toddlers or children should never be in a bed with an infant. Moreover, since having smoked during a pregnancy diminishes the capacities of infants to arouse to protect their breathing, smoking mothers should have their infants sleep alongside them on a different surface but not in the same bed.

My own physiological studies suggest that breastfeeding mother-infant pairs exhibit increased sensitivities and responses to each other while sleeping, and those sensitivities offers the infant protection from overlay. However, if bottle feeding, infants should lie alongside the mother in a crib or bassinet, but not in the same bed. Prone or stomach sleeping especially on soft mattresses is always dangerous for infants and so is covering their heads with blankets, or laying them near or on top of pillows. Light blanketing is always best as is attention to any spaces or gaps in bed furniture which needs to be fixed as babies can slip into these spaces and quickly to become wedged and asphyxiate. My recommendation is, if routinely bedsharing, to strip the bed apart from its frame, pulling the mattress and box springs to the center of the room, therein avoiding dangerous spaces or gaps into which babies can slip to be injured or die.

But, again, disagreement remains over how best to use this information. Certain medical groups, including some members of the American Academy of Pediatrics (though not necessarily the majority), argue that bedsharing should be eliminated altogether. Others, myself included, prefer to support the practice when it can be done safely amongst breastfeeding mothers. Some professionals believe that it can never be made safe but there is no evidence that this is true.

More importantly, parents just don’t believe it! Making sure that parents are in a position to make informed choices therein reflecting their own infant’s needs, family goals, and nurturing and infant care preferences seems to me to be fundamental.

Our Biological Imperatives

My support of bedsharing when practiced safely stems from my research knowledge of how and why it occurs, what it means to mothers, and how it functions biologically. Like human taste buds which reward us for eating what’s overwhelmingly critical for survival i.e. fats and sugars, a consideration of human infant and parental biology and psychology reveal the existence of powerful physiological and social factors that promote maternal motivations to cosleep and explain parental needs to touch and sleep close to baby.

The low calorie composition of human breast milk (exquisitely adjusted for the human infants’ undeveloped gut) requires frequent nighttime feeds, and, hence, helps explain how and why a cultural shift toward increased cosleeping behavior is underway. Approximately 73% of US mothers leave the hospital breast feeding and even amongst mothers who never intended to bedshare soon discover how much easier breast feeding is and how much more satisfied they feel with baby sleeping alongside often in their bed.

But it’s not just breastfeeding that promotes bedsharing. Infants usually have something to say about it too! And for some reason they remain unimpressed with declarations as to how dangerous sleeping next to mother can be. Instead, irrepressible (ancient) neurologically-based infant responses to maternal smells, movements and touch altogether reduce infant crying while positively regulating infant breathing, body temperature, absorption of calories, stress hormone levels, immune status, and oxygenation. In short, and as mentioned above, cosleeping (whether on the same surface or not) facilitates positive clinical changes including more infant sleep and seems to make, well, babies happy. In other words, unless practiced dangerously, sleeping next to mother is good for infants. The reason why it occurs is because… it is supposed to.

Recall that despite dramatic cultural and technological changes in the industrialized west, human infants are still born the most neurologically immature primate of all, with only 25% of their brain volume. This represents a uniquely human characteristic that could only develop biologically (indeed, is only possible) alongside mother’s continuous contact and proximity—as mothers body proves still to be the only environment to which the infant is truly adapted, for which even modern western technology has yet to produce a substitute.

Even here in whatever-city-USA, nothing a baby can or cannot do makes sense except in light of the mother’s body, a biological reality apparently dismissed by those that argue against any and all bedsharing and what they call cosleeping, but which likely explains why most crib-using parents at some point feel the need to bring their babies to bed with them —findings that our mother-baby sleep laboratory here at Notre Dame has helped document scientifically. Given a choice, it seems human babies strongly prefer their mother’s body to solitary contact with inert cotton-lined mattresses. In turn, mothers seem to notice and succumb to their infant’s preferences.

There is no doubt that bedsharing should be avoided in particular circumstances and can be practiced dangerously. While each single bedsharing death is tragic, such deaths are no more indictments about any and all bedsharing than are the three hundred thousand plus deaths or more of babies in cribs an indictment that crib sleeping is deadly and should be eliminated. Just as unsafe cribs and unsafe ways to use cribs can be eliminated so, too, can parents be educated to minimize bedsharing risks.

Moving Beyond Judgments to Understanding

We still do not know what causes SIDS. But fortunately the primary factors that increase risk are now widely known i.e. placing an infant prone (face down) for sleep, using soft mattresses, maternal smoking, overwrapping babies or blocking air movement around their faces. In combination with bedsharing, where more vital normal defensive infant responses and may be more important to an infant (like the ability to arouse to bat a blanket which momentarily falls to cover the infants face when its parent moves or turns) these risks become exaggerated especially amongst unhealthy infants. When infants die in these obviously unsafe conditions, it is here where social biases and the sheer levels of ignorance associated with actually explaining the death become apparent. A death itself in a bedsharing environment does not automatically suggest, as many legal and medical authorities assert, that it was the bedsharing, or worse, suffocation that killed the infant. Infants in bedsharirng environments, like babies in cribs, can still die of SIDS.

It is a shame and certainly inappropriate that, for example, the head pathologists of the state of Indiana recommends that other pathologists assume SIDS as a likely cause of death when babies die in cribs but to assume asphyxiation if a baby dies in an adult bed or has a history of “cosleeping”. By assuming before any facts are known from the pathologist’s death scene and toxicological report that any bedsharing baby was a victim of an accidental suffocation rather than from some congenital or natural cause, including SIDS unrelated to bedsharing, medical authorities not only commit a form of scientific fraud but they victimize the doomed infant’s parents for a third time. The first occurs when their baby dies, the second occurs when health professionals interviewed for news stories (which commonly occurs) imply that when a baby dies in a bed with an adult it must be due to suffocation (or a SIDS induced by bedsharing). The third time the parents are victimized is when still without any evidence medical or police authorities suggest that their baby’s death was “preventable,” that their baby would still be alive if only the parents had not bedshared. This conclusion is based not on the facts of the tragedy but on unfair and fallacious stereotypes about bedsharing.

Indeed, no legitimate SIDS researcher nor forensic pathologist should render a judgment that a baby was suffocated without an extensive toxiological report and death scene investigation including information from the mother concerning what her thoughts are on what might or could have happened.

Whether involving cribs or adult beds, risky sleep practices leading to infant deaths are more likely to occur when parents lack access to safety information, or if they are judged to be irresponsible should they choose to follow their own and their infants’ biological predilections to bedshare, or if public health messages are held back on brochures and replaced by simplistic and inappropriate warnings saying “just never do it.” Such recommendations misrepresent the true function and biological significance of the behaviors, and the critical extent to which dangerous practices can be modified, and they dismiss the valid reasons why people engage in the behavior in the first place.

More Information:
Sleeping With Your Baby: A Parent’s Guide To Cosleeping by James J.McKenna (2007). Platypus Press. *BOOK*

McKenna, J., Ball H., Gettler L., Mother-infant Cosleeping, Breastfeeding and SIDS: What Biological Anthropologists Have Learned About Normal Infant Sleep and Pediatric Sleep Medicine. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 50:133-161 (2007) *FOR FULL PDF OF THIS SCHOLARLY ARTICLE LEAVE COMMENT OR SEND REQUEST TO PEACEFUL PARENTING BLOG AUTHOR*

McKenna, J., McDade, T., Why Babies Should Never Sleep Alone: A Review of the Co-Sleeping Controversy in Relation to SIDS, Bedsharing and Breastfeeding. Paediatric Respiratory Reviews 6:134-152 (2005) *DOWNLOADABLE PDF*

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