I promised this a few days ago but the high blood pressure medication information got my attention, and rightly so. So here it is. Routines are way more effective! Read on….

Ria Blom, a Dutch maternal and child health care nurse, became intrigued by swaddling in 1994 and she tested the use of swaddling as a method that seemed to be able to reduce restlessness and crying and improve sleep in infants. She developed a holistic approach where swaddling, only during sleep periods, was used. She has closely observed babies with crying and sleeping problems and over the years has developed methods for supporting families when infants cry excessively. She wrote several books for parents and was willing to make her theory and practical experience available for research. The rhythm and uniformity approach used by Blom was rather similar to the approach by others in other parts of the world who demonstrated a positive effect of a certain rhythm in daily care of the infant on the reduction of crying. Studying the effect of swaddling on excessive infant crying was new, however. The final goal of the study was to reduce excessive crying and we believed that this might require additional ways to do this.

“The main question of the study was whether swaddling had an added advantage in addition to offering routine steps of daily care and a quiet environment.”

Rhythm and uniformity in everyday childcare (the same every day) and a quiet environment, means that these babies require a consistent sequence for their sleeping times, feeding them right after waking, having a positive interaction/ cuddling and playing with a parent, playing on their own (preferably in a playpen), and being put to bed awake as soon as signs of weariness appear, for example, yawning, whining, rubbing of eyes, overactive behavior. This approach offers the baby and the parents’ structure and may help them to improve its ability to sleep the time it needs, drink adequately and being content while being/playing on its own.

Parents should keep in mind that swaddling should not be applied without assistance of a physician and health nurse. When illness or hunger is the cause of excessive crying, swaddling should not be applied. Moreover, a safe swaddling technique should be used. Although our study did not prove added benefit for swaddling, except for the first 3 days after swaddling started, it is sometimes used, for example because parents have difficulty finding a certain rhythm in care, which may be easier to reach when the infant is swaddled or because the child continues to cry and will not settle at all and parents get more and more hopeless. Another reason why parents might wish to swaddle their infant is their cultural preference, or what those in their families or culture use. Even so, a safety conscious guideline should be used and is helpful in these instances.

by van Sleuwen

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