Talk:Swaddling

message: The article should say something about why swaddling was thought to be beneficial (i.e. why was it thought to assist posture), why it was so widespread (did it develop in different cultures independently??), and why the belief persisted so long.Ben Finn (talk) 19:39, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Origins?

message: Description of the practice in China should be added. Badagnani (talk) 05:48, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: China

message: It is all too convenient that an infant is unable to communicate his discomfort at the hands of this practice.  So I challenge a mother to spend a single night in such a state of bondage before subjecting her baby to this.  It would not be considered humane to do this to our prisoners.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.208.61.221 (talk) 02:09, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Babies are very good at communicating their discomfort.  In my personal, unscientific example, my baby sleeps 1-2 hours, and then proceeds to wake himself up with his wildly waving hands while unswaddled.  While swaddled, he will sleep 8 hours though the night.  The same is true for daytime naps, though the time periods are shorter.  He'll sleep 15 minutes without swaddling, and 1 hour with swaddling. I have to believe that he likes it, or he'd scream more.  Azoreg (talk) 21:15, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Barbaric? 

message: re:  "and that it (swaddling) lowers the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (cot death)."
this is contradicted in an apf article http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5irDtA7K3tiqg7f15Gq_oWmnwoPgw which references a study published by the British Medical Journal and states "The study, published in the British Medical Journal, also noted that one fourth of the infants who died were swaddled, and one fifth used a pillow, a far higher percentage than in either control group."  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.168.193.92 (talk) 00:07, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: More recent meta-analysis (2016) suggests that SIDS risk *may* be increased when swaddled babies are not put to sleep on their back or when babies are swaddled past the point when they can roll off of their back during sleep. However experts are quick to point out that babies that sleep on their side or back have a higher risk of SIDS swaddle or no swaddle and causation does not equal correlation.  http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/10/health/swaddling-sids-study/ http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2016/05/05/peds.2015-3275 Caffeinated42 (talk) 08:41, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Medical

message: What I miss in this article is something about the consequences of swaddling on child development.  A completely unswaddled child is typically able to walk by the age of a year.  However, a child swaddled to that age would still be helpless.  The child's muscles would simply atrophy because the adults caring for it would only allow them to be used for short wiles several hours apart.  The effect on the muscles might well be comparable to spending equal time in microgravity without the opportunity to exercise.  I seriously wonder if a child swaddled to the point of fixation of the head would even be able to lift it from the bed when the swaddling ended.  A child swaddled to the armpits would be able to turn round by the end of swaddling but not much more than that.  In all likelihood there would be consequences on mental development as well.  Such a long an early period of compulsory immobility simply has to have affect a child's mind.  A small child learns the properties of every-day objects by touching, gripping, moving, smelling and tasting them.  (This is why infants and smaller toddlers try to put everything in their mouth, since it allows them to touch, smell and taste the objects at the same time.)  A child swaddled to the armpits would not have learned the properties of as many objects at the same age as an unswaddled one due to inability to sit or crawl.  A child swaddled to the neck would barely learn anything such at all until after the swaddling ended.  Furthermore, a child swaddled to the point of having its head covered with several layers of clothes would have its language acquisition delayed due to difficulty to hear what others said.  The boredom caused by compulsory immobility should have consequences as well.  Anyone who has a good idea?
2010-01-22  Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.
A convincing argument, do you have any sources to back this up? Totorotroll (talk) 15:22, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consequences on child development 

message: Probably the term "tribal peoples" on this page should be changed to something more specific (which people, in which countries?). I would change it myself, except that I don't know which people are intended. Even Wikipedia (in its page on the word "tribe") notes that the word "tribal" is a "contested term."Catherine Hunter (talk) 04:34, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the person who chose the word was trying not to be too specific because the custom is fairly widespread... AnonMoos (talk) 05:11, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  tribal people