Swaddling
Swaddling is an age-old practice of wrapping infants snugly in swaddling cloths, blankets or similar cloth so that movement of the limbs is tightly restricted. Swaddling bands were often used to further restrict the infant. It was commonly believed that this was essential for the infants to get a proper posture.
Origin & History
Mothers have swaddled their babies throughout history. Votive statuettes have been found in the tombs of Ancient Greek and Roman women who died in childbirth, displaying babies in swaddling clothes. In shrines dedicated to Amphiaraus, models representing babies wrapped in swaddling clothes have been excavated. Apparently, these were frequently given as thank-offerings by anxious mothers when their infants had recovered from sickness. [1]
The most famous record of swaddling is probably found in the Bible concerning the birth of Christ:
And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. (Lk: II: 6-7)
The oriental swaddling clothes consisted of a square of cloth and two or more bandages. The child was laid on the cloth diagonally and the corners are folded over the feet and body and under the head, the bandages then being tied so as to hold the cloth in position. This device formed the clothing of the child until it is about a year old, and its omission (Ezekiel 16:4) would be a token that the child had been abandoned.[2]
Over time swaddling clothes became more elaborate, especially for the wealthy. During Tudor times, there were several different clothes needed to wrap a baby. In the case of the children of James III of Scotland, the children wore several caps, a shirt, a square band “bed”, which bounded from the breast to the feet and up again, a long band of swaddling clothes (roller), a tube waistcoat that bound the arms and roller and a blanket. A stay band would be attached to the forehead and the shoulders to secure the head. Babies would be dressed like this for up to one year.
In the seventeenth century the opinion towards swaddling began to change. In 1693 John Locke, in his publication Some Thoughts Concerning Education, became a lobbyist for not bounding babies at all. This thought was very controversial during the time, but slowly gained ground, first in England and later elsewhere in Europe.
For instance Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote in his book Emile: Or, On Education, 1762:
The child has hardly left the mother's womb, it has hardly begun to move and stretch its limbs, when it is given new bonds. It is wrapped in swaddling bands, laid down with its head fixed, its legs stretched out, and its arms by its sides; it is wound round with linen and bandages of all sorts so that it cannot move […]. Whence comes this unreasonable custom? From an unnatural practice. Since mothers despise their primary duty and do not wish to nurse their own children, they have had to entrust them to mercenary women. These women thus become mothers to a stranger's children, who by nature mean so little to them that they seek only to spare themselves trouble. A child unswaddled would need constant watching; well swaddled it is cast into a corner and its cries are ignored […]. It is claimed that infants left free would assume faulty positions and make movements which might injure the proper development of their limbs. This is one of the vain rationalizations of our false wisdom which experience has never confirmed. Out of the multitude of children who grow up with the full use of their limbs among nations wiser than ourselves, you never find one who hurts himself or maims himself; their movements are too feeble to be dangerous, and when they assume an injurious position, pain warns them to change it.
Although the extreme form of swaddling has fallen out of favour in the Western world, many Eastern cultures and tribal people still use it. Some researchers have been shocked that the medieval practice continues today.[3] According to Arthur Janov, the effects of swaddling on all adults' emotional lives is profound. There is a lifelong deficit on oxytocin and oversupply of cortisol, the stress hormone, resulting in a lifetime of rage and anxieties.[4] Even rats lose hormones in the hippocampus and orbital frontal lobes when tied up like swaddled human infants, developing depletions in serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine, exacerbated aggressive behavior and a severe decrease of social capabilities.[5]
Modern swaddling
A modified form of swaddling is still popular today as a means of settling and soothing irritable infants. The lengthy swaddling cloths of mediaeval Madonna and Child paintings are now replaced with receiving blankets or flannelette sheets. The confinement is supposed to provide warmth and security for a baby who has recently left the womb. Today, many midwives swaddle infants soon after birth and it is now a standard newborn care practice in many hospitals.
Some medical studies maintain that swaddling appears to be a positioning technique that can enhance neuromuscular development of the very low birth weight infant and that it might have a role in further lowering SIDS risk [6][7]
See also
References
- ^ C.J.S. Thompson M.B.E. curator, Greco-roman votive offerings for health in the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, London: Hazell, Watson and Viney
- ^ International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1915
- ^ [1] – article by Michel Odent, M.D.
- ^ Janov, Arthur (2000). The Biology of Love. Prometheus Books.
- ^ Perry, Bruce D. (1994). “Neurobiological sequelae of childhood trauma: PSTD in children” in Michele Murburg: Catechloamine Function in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Emerging Concepts. American Psychiatric Press. pp. 223–254.
- ^ Franco P, Scaillet S, Groswasser J, Kahn A., Increased cardiac autonomic responses to auditory challenges in swaddled infants, Sleep, December 2004
- ^ M.A. Short, J.A. Brooks-Brunn, D.S. Reeves, J. Yeager and J.A. Thorpe., The effect of swaddling versus standard positioning on neuromuscular development in very low birth weight infants, Neonatal Network, 15 (4) p. 25-31, 1996.
External links
- Swaddling Your Baby From University of Florida/IFAS Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences
- Swaddling in an historical context of child abuse