page_title: Swaddling
section_title: Origin and history
hierarchical_section_title: Swaddling / Origin and history
caption_attribution_description: The Cholmondeley sisters and their swaddled babies
context_page_description: Swaddling is an age-old practice of wrapping infants in blankets or similar cloths so that movement of the limbs is tightly restricted. Swaddling bands were often used to further restrict the infant. Swaddling fell out of favor in the 17th century.
  Some authors are of the opinion that swaddling is becoming popular again, although medical and psychological opinion on the effects of swaddling is divided. Some modern medical studies indicate that swaddling helps babies fall asleep and to remain asleep and helps to keep the baby in a supine position, which lowers the risk of sudden infant death syndrome. However, one recent study indicated that swaddling increased the risk of SIDS. Additionally emerging evidence is showing that certain swaddling techniques may increase the risk of developmental dysplasia of the hip.
context_section_description: Several authors presume that swaddling was invented in the paleolithic period.
  The earliest depictions of swaddled babies are votive offerings and grave goods from Crete and Cyprus, 4000 to 4500 years old.
  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.
  Probably the most famous record of swaddling is found in the New Testament concerning the birth of Jesus in Luke 2:6–2:7:
  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.
  Swaddling clothes described in the Bible consisted of a cloth tied together by bandage-like strips. After an infant was born, the umbilical cord was cut and tied, and then the baby was washed, rubbed with salt and oil, and wrapped with strips of cloth. These strips kept the newborn child warm and also ensured that the child's limbs would grow straight. Ezekiel 16:4 describes Israel as unswaddled, a metaphor for abandonment.
  During Tudor times, swaddling involved wrapping the new baby in linen bands from head to foot to ensure the baby would grow up without physical deformity. A stay band would be attached to the forehead and the shoulders to secure the head. Babies would be swaddled like this until about 8 or 9 months.
  The Swiss surgeon Felix Würtz (approx. 1500 to approx. 1598) was the first who criticized aspects of swaddling openly.
  I also saw right and straight children created by God and born into this world by humans, who became nevertheless bent and lame men, who never got straight and healthy thighs. (…) In addition, I have for instance let a child lay again down and tied up, so that I see, in which way he was swaddled. There I then really saw, where it was gone wrong (…). By misunderstanding however they wanted to bind him straight, but in fact they bind him bent and tighten the bandages hard, so that the child cannot have peace (….).
  In the seventeenth century, the scientific opinion towards swaddling began to change. There was an association of neglect with swaddling, especially regarding wetnurses who would leave babies in their care swaddled for long periods without washing or comforting them. More than a hundred years after Würtz, physicians and philosophers from England began to openly criticize swaddling and finally demanded its complete abolishment. The British philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) rejected swaddling in his 1693 publication Some Thoughts Concerning Education, becoming a lobbyist for not binding babies at all. This thought was very controversial during the time, but slowly gained ground, first in England and later elsewhere in Western Europe.
  William Cadogan (1711–1797) seems to have been the first physician, who pleaded for the complete abolition of swaddling. In his "Essay upon Nursing" of 1748, he expressed his view of contemporary child care, swaddling, the topic of too much clothing for infants and overfeeding. He wrote:
  But besides the Mischief arising from the Weight and Heat of these Swaddling-cloaths, they are put on so tight, and the Child is so cramp'd by them, that its Bowels have not room, nor the Limbs any Liberty, to act and exert themselves in the free easy Manner they ought. This is a very hurtful Circumstance, for Limbs that are not used, will never be strong, and such tender Bodies cannot bear much Pressure.
  Philosophers and physicians more and more began to reject swaddling in the 18th century. Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote in his book Emile: Or, On Education in 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
caption: The Cholmondeley Ladies and their swaddled babies. c.1600–1610
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