3 Reasons Babywearing Reduces SIDS

3 REASONS BABYWEARING REDUCES SIDS
If SIDS is basically a disorder of respiratory control and neurological immaturity (and I believe it is), anything that can help a baby's neurological system mature overall will lower the risk of SIDS. That's exactly what babywearing does.
While wearing our own babies, I noticed how my breathing affected theirs, especially when I was sitting still with a sleeping baby nestled in a sling against my chest. Whenever I took a deep breath, so did baby. Sometimes the stimulus was the rise and fall of my chest, at other times the air exhaled from my mouth and nose against baby's scalp or cheek-stimulated baby to take a deep breath.
Have you ever wondered why mothers in other cultures have for centuries worn their babies in homemade slings? I used to believe this old custom's purpose was simply to protect babies from jungle dangers or to enable mothers to do manual labor. Wrong! When I was researching parenting styles in other cultures, I interviewed African mothers who wore their babies in slings that were extensions of their clothing. They agreed that babywearing protected their infants from dangers, but that wasn't the main reason for doing it. Instead, they said, "It makes life easier for the mother," or "It does good things for babies." "What good things?" I inquired. These mothers replied, "The babies seem happier," or "They cry less," or "They seem more content," or "The babies grow better."
Note: these observations were not from mothers who attended parenting classes, read books on baby bonding, or relied on scientific studies. These were mothers whose "sources" were their own powers of keen observation and centuries of tradition, both of which told them babies thrive better when carried in slings. Now, modern researchers have scientifically proven what these intuitive mothers have long known: Something good happens to babies who spend a lot of time nestled close to nurturing caregivers. Here's why.
1. Babywearing gives a vestibular connection. Babywearing exerts a regulatory effect on the baby, primarily through the vestibular system. This tiny system, located behind each ear, controls baby's sense of internal balance. It is as if there are three tiny carpenter levels back there—one tracking side- to-side motion, another for up-and-down motion, and a third for back-and-forth motion—all functioning together to keep the body in balance. Every time the baby moves, the fluid in these "levels" moves against tiny hair-like filaments that vibrate, which sends messages to the brain to help baby balance her body.
In the womb, the baby's very sensitive vestibular system is constantly stimulated because a fetus experiences almost continuous motion. Babywearing provides the same kind of three-dimensional stimulation and "reminds" the baby of the motion and balance he enjoyed in the womb. The rhythm of the mother's walk, which baby got so used to in the womb, is experienced again in the "outside womb" during babywearing.
Activities such as rocking and carrying stimulate the baby's vestibular system. Vestibular stimulation is a recently appreciated tool for helping babies breath and grow better, especially premature infants—those at highest risk of SIDS. Some studies showed premature babies placed on professionally-monitored, oscillating waterbeds grew better and had fewer apnea episodes than other preemies did (although one study disputed this.) Babies themselves recognize that they need vestibular stimulation; infants deprived of adequate vestibular stimulation often attempt to put themselves into motion on their own, with less efficient movements, such as self-rocking. Researchers believe that vestibular stimulation has a regulating effect on an infant's overall physiology and motor development.
Kangaroo care. Newborn nurseries have recently begun using a method of vestibular stimulation called "kangaroo care," in which a premature baby is wrapped, skin-to-skin, up against the mother's or father's chest. The parent rocks, holds, and gently moves with the baby. The rocking motion, the skin contact, and the rhythmic motion of the parent's chest during breathing produces the following beneficial effects:Babies show:
More stable heart rates
More even breathing
Fewer episodes of periodic breathing
Fewer and shorter episodes of apnea
A healthier level of oxygen in their blood
Faster growth
Less crying and increased time in the state of quiet alertness
Better sleeping
Researchers believe that using kangaroo care helps the parent act as a regulator of baby's physiology, including reminding the baby to breathe. In other experiments, infants with breathing difficulties were placed next to a teddy bear stuffed with a mechanism that seemed to "breathe"; these babies also had fewer apnea episodes. When this "breakthrough" in teddy technology hit the newspapers, a reader wrote in, "Why not use the real mother?"
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SIDS Stories
As an example of how closeness regulates a baby's breathing, a mother shared the following story with me: "My baby was born four weeks premature at five pounds, fifteen ounces. I held her all day long and never put her in a bassinet. She breastfed well. She seemed perfectly healthy, pink, and breathed normally. The evening the pediatrician came to check her, she took her into the nursery and put her in a bassinet. As soon as our baby was lying in the bassinet alone she had a stop-breathing episode, which alarmed the neonatologists, and she was put into intensive care for nine days. They never found out why she had apneic episodes, although they thought it was due to a 'slight seizure disorder.' All they had to do was touch her and she would start breathing again. She never had any stop-breathing episodes when she was in my arms, only when she was lying alone. The doctors told me she was a prime candidate for SIDS. They convinced me that she needed to be on an infant monitor at home. I agreed, but it turned out to be a nightmare for our whole family. They told me not to put her in my bed, so she slept alone with the monitor. The monitor went off all night long, probably from false alarms, and no one got any sleep. I left her on the monitor but put her next to me in bed. We both slept wonderfully, and the monitor alarm never sounded. I strongly feel that my presence stimulated her to breathe until she outgrew her stop-breathing tendencies. My touch and closeness to her was all she needed. In fact, while she was in my arms, all day long, in the hospital no one ever knew she had a 'breathing problem.'"
2. Motion regulates babies. Motion calms babies. Carried infants show a heightened level of quiet alertness, the behavioral state in which infants best interact with and learn from their environment. Researchers believe that during the state of quiet alertness, the child's whole physiological system works better.
3. Carried babies cry less. Parents in my practice commonly report, "As long as I wear her, she's content!" Parents of fussy babies who try babywearing relate that their baby seems to forget to fuss. This is more than just my own impression. In 1986, a team of pediatricians in Montreal reported on a study of ninety-nine mother-infant pairs, half of whom were assigned to a group which was asked to carry their babies for at least three extra hours a day and were provided with baby carriers. The parents in this group were encouraged to carry their infants throughout the day regardless of the state of the infant, not just in response to crying or fussing, although the usual practice in Western society is to pick up and carry the baby only after the crying has started. In the control, or non-carried group, parents were not given any specific instructions about carrying. After six weeks, the infants who received supplemental carrying cried and fussed 43 percent less than the non-carried group. Anthropologists who travel throughout the world studying infant-care practices in other cultures agree that infants in babywearing cultures cry much less. In Western culture we measure a baby's crying in hours per day, but in other cultures, crying is measured in minutes. We have been led to believe that it is "normal" for babies to cry a lot, but in other cultures this is not accepted as the norm. In these cultures, babies are normally "up" in arms and are put down only to sleep—next to the mother. When the parent must attend to her own needs, the baby is in someone else's arms.
In addition to the physiological effects of vestibular stimulation, there appear to be psychological benefits. Sling babies seem to show a feeling of rightness, enabling them to adapt to all that is unfamiliar about the world to which they are now exposed, lessening their anxiety and need to fuss. As baby senses mother's rhythmic breathing while worn tummy-to-tummy and chest-to-chest, the babywearing mother acts as a regulator of her infant's biology