Sharing A Dream With A Child - A Definite Benefit Or Harm? Let's Give The Floor To Science

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

The debate about sleeping together is not abating - is it right or not. So, the famous pediatrician Yevgeny Komarovsky claims that there can be no definite answer to this question, because the main function of sleep is rest. And if the next morning the family members feel good, rested, then a joint with a child or a separate sleep suits them. Here is my translation of an interview with an expert published in the Huffington Post. Arianna Huffington, editor-in-chief, interviews James McKenna

Dr. James J. McKenna is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame. He is an internationally renowned expert on infant sleep - especially when it comes to sleeping with a baby while breastfeeding. In our conversation, he shared his discoveries about shared sleep, biphasic sleep patterns, and offered practical advice for parents of newborns.

You supported shared sleep (hereinafter CC) - tell us about your research in the organization of this type of sleep. What peoples is generally accepted? What are the benefits?

My research into mother and child CC began when my wife and I learned that she was pregnant. Like most parents waiting for their first child, we rushed to buy all the books on childcare. But after reading several books on how to better take care of a newborn, we found ourselves in the middle, between two conclusions: either everything I studied about anthropology, my specialty, was wrong, or Western schemes and advice on how to take care of a baby. have nothing to do with children at all. Perhaps this is due to the fact that in modern Western cultural ideologies and social values there is a definition of what they want from children and who they should become when they grow up, instead of who children really are and what they need.

In any first introductory class in biological anthropology, students will learn that the human infant is the most vulnerable, contact-dependent, slow-growing, and dependent of all mammalian primates, because humans are born neurologically prematurely relative to other mammalian primates. In order for a human baby to safely pass through the hole in the mother's pelvis, which a person needs in order to walk upright, an infant must be born with only 25% of the volume of its future adult brain. This means that physiological systems cannot function optimally without contact with the mother's body, which continues to "regulate" the baby in much the same way as during gestation. Ashley Montagu, my personal intellectual heroine, calls human babies “extero-gestational,” that is, hatched from the outside. Touching an infant changes their breathing, body temperature, growth rate, blood pressure, stress level, etc. In other words, the mother's body is the only environment to which the human baby is adapted. As Dr. Winnicott (Donald Winnicott, renowned child physiologist) said: "There is no such thing -" newborn ", there is always" newborn and someone else."

Here's a deeply truthful and scientific starting point for understanding why babies never accept or agree to the message that they should sleep alone. Solitary infant sleep creates a neurobiological crisis for the human newborn, as this micro-environment is ecologically invalid (unjustified) and does not meet the fundamental needs of human babies. In fact, sleeping alone in a room and not breastfeeding is now recognized as a separate risk factor for SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) - here's a fact that explains why most of the world has never heard of SIDS.

When my son was born, I found that I could change his breathing, changing my own, as if we were in sync with each other. My research later confirmed that the breathing of the mother and the baby is regulated by the presence of each other - the sounds of inhalation and exhalation, the raising and lowering of their chest cells, carbon dioxide, which one exhales and the other inhales, leading to an acceleration of the next inhalation! I have noted in scientific articles that this is another signal to remind children to breathe, a safety system in case of a baby’s breathing interruption. My wife and I were shocked when we read what pediatric sleep researchers say about normal sleep in human babies. the idea that children should "calm down on their own." Even then, we understood that this was nothing more than a cultural construct without an empirical evidence base.

I have studied the negative physiological effects of short-term separation from the mother in newborn primates, such as effects on heart rate, respiration, body temperature, viral susceptibility, cortisol levels, digestion, and growth in general. How can I be surprised that the most immature primate of them all - we - is even more sensitive to all sensory signals? Taking in your arms, carrying a child in your arms, sleeping with him is not just a great social idea, but also an important investment in his well-being. I decided to take my knowledge of primate behavior and apply it to us humans and test whether nocturnal contact (HV and ST) actually affects human babies in the way I described, and what happens when babies sleep alone. I led a team of scientists who first documented the behavioral and physiological effects of sleeping alone with a baby and what it looks like to sleep with a breastfed baby.

We have shown how the sensory systems of mothers and babies mutually influence each other. Not only does the mother change the quality of the baby's sleep and physiological state - but the baby also regulates the mother's behavior and her physiological status.

It is important to remember that while the idea of the SS has been spreading and developing, modern beds and bedding are not. We need a safe environment for the SS. But when combined with breastfeeding, sleeping together can be protective. We now know that many breastfeeding mothers choose CC because it allows you to sleep more, improves breastfeeding and bonding with your baby.

When CC is organized safely, it makes mothers (and fathers!) And toddlers happier and has a positive effect on growing children. Of course, mothers should not be judged or accused of being irresponsible for sleeping with their baby. In fact, 90% of all human beings, in one form or another, practice STS with their children!

You are quoted saying that people are really prone to biphasic sleep, they say: "In America, the norm, and it is assumed that you go to bed at 11 pm and sleep dead sleep until 7 am, and if not, you have a pathology - insomnia."

How do you react to headlines that give a rigid box to the amount of sleep a person is "obligated" to get?

Human metabolism tends to slow down in the afternoon, and most likely our biology is tending towards some form of biphasic sleep. The fact that in different cultures most people are able to modify this biological property undoubtedly reflects our evolutionary past, which developed in the tropics, when there was a need to avoid the powerful heat of the day.

Cultural values emphasize, if not regulate, how and when we sleep. In the United States, there is an expression “I don’t want to be caught when I’m asleep,” which suggests naps as a kind of disruption. In other cultures, by the way, daytime sleep or siesta are encouraged.

The evolutionary need to be alert during sleep and wake up quickly allowed early humanity to adapt to shifting social, physiological, and emotional challenges. This is why it is so important to respect the individuality of the norm and to view overall health from a multiple perspective. It makes me uncomfortable reading these headlines with sweeping statements that can raise anxiety and anxiety in people with different sleep habits, especially if they feel well rested during the day. And when all diseases and syndromes are explained by chronic lack of sleep, it must be recognized that in fact, it is very difficult to assess the causes and effects here.

As an expert on infant sleep, what advice can you give to parents of newborns to help their baby (and themselves) sleep?

Do what works in your family, trust yourself, you know your child better than any outside authority. You spend the most time with your child, and every child is different. Babies, children and their parents interact in a variety of ways. In fact, there is no single pattern for any of the relationships that we develop. When it comes to sleep management, many families have very vague notions of where their child "should" sleep. Parents with less rigid, rigid ideas about how and where their child should sleep are much happier and less likely to become frustrated when their children are unable to do what they "should" - like sleeping soundly all night, for example.

And above all, remember that babies do not have an agenda; they are not trying to pressure you or manipulate you. With such an undeveloped small brain, they are as close to their genes and instincts as a person can be, and very little to control their behavior. In the first six to seven months of life, they have no "want", there are only needs. Always remember that babies are as much "victims" of their behavior as, perhaps, you are.

The key to satisfying parenting is not accepting what others think you must do if it doesn't work for you. Rather, be open to how the constellations of relationships that hold your family together interact and connect with the solutions that work for you. Try not to judge your baby's sleep. Don't confuse the medical benefits of a night's sleep with the morality of the idea that "good children" sleep soundly all night. After all, the concept of a "good child" has become the worst invention of culture for all parents.