Babywearing Lowers the Risk of SIDS

Dr. William Sears, Paediatrician and Father of Eight

If SIDS is essentially a disorder of respiratory control and neurological immaturity, which is what I believe, then anything that helps a baby's neurological system mature further will help reduce the risk of SIDS. That is exactly what babywearing does.

How Babywearing Affects Breathing

While carrying our own babies, I noticed how my breathing influenced theirs, especially when I sat still with a sleeping baby nestled against my chest in a wrap. Whenever I took a deep breath, so did the baby. Sometimes the stimulus was the rise and fall of my chest; other times it was the air I breathed out through my mouth and nose brushing over the baby's little head or cheek, prompting them to take a deep breath too.

What African Mothers Observed

Have you ever wondered why mothers in cultures around the world carried their babies in homemade wraps for centuries? I used to think the reason for this old custom was simply to protect babies from the dangers of the jungle or to allow the mother to get her work done.

Wrong! As I researched parenting styles across cultures, I interviewed African mothers who carried their babies in cloths. They agreed that carrying protected their children from danger, but that wasn't the main reason for doing it. In fact, they said things like, "It makes the mother's life easier" or "It does good things for the baby". "What kind of good things?" I asked. These mothers answered: "The babies seem happier" or "They cry less" or "They seem more content" or "The babies grow better".

These observations weren't made by mothers who follow the "classic" parenting style, read books on baby bonding, or rely on scientific studies. These were mothers whose "source" was their own sharp powers of observation and centuries of experience, both of which told them that babies thrive better when carried in cloths. Modern research has now confirmed what these intuitive mothers have known all along: something good happens to babies who spend a lot of time snuggled against a caring caregiver.

Reasons Babywearing Lowers the Risk of SIDS

1. The Vestibular System Is Stimulated

Carrying exerts its regulating influence on the baby primarily through the vestibular system in the inner ear. In the womb, the baby's sensitive vestibular system is stimulated by near-constant movement. Carrying offers the same kind of three-dimensional movement and brings back the baby's experience of motion and balance that they enjoyed in the womb. The rhythm of the mother's gait, which the baby grew accustomed to in the womb, is experienced again through carrying in this "external womb".

Activities like rocking and carrying stimulate the baby's vestibular system. This stimulation is the simplest way to support a baby's breathing and growth, especially for premature babies – those at the highest risk of SIDS. Some studies showed that premature babies who were professionally monitored on undulating waterbeds grew better and had fewer episodes of apnoea than other premature babies.

Neonatal units began using a vestibular stimulation method known as kangaroo care, in which premature babies are wrapped skin-to-skin against their mother's or father's chest. The parents rock and move gently with the baby. The rocking motion, skin contact, and the rhythmic rise and fall of the parent's chest as they breathe produce the following beneficial effects:

• a more stable heart rate
• more stable breathing
• fewer episodes of periodic breathing
• healthier blood oxygen saturation
• faster growth
• less crying and longer periods of contented wakefulness
• better sleep

2. Movement Calms Babies

Carried babies display a distinctly calm alertness, the behavioural state in which children can best interact with and learn from their surroundings. Researchers believe that a baby's whole physiology functions better in this behavioural state.

3. Carried Babies Cry Less

Anthropologists who study babywearing practices in other cultures agree that children in babywearing cultures cry considerably less. In Western cultures, we measure baby crying in hours per day; in other cultures, crying is measured in minutes. We believe it's "normal" for babies to cry a lot, but in other cultures this isn't accepted as the norm. (...)

A Mother Reports

My baby was born four weeks early, weighing 2,515g. I held her all day long and never put her down in a bassinet. She nursed well, was healthy, pink, and breathed normally.

One afternoon, when the paediatrician came to examine her, she took her to the ward and put her down in a bassinet. As soon as our baby was lying alone in the bassinet, she had a breathing pause that alerted the neonatologists, and they took her to the intensive care unit for nine days. They never found out why she was having these apnoea episodes, although they thought it might be "mild bouts of unrest".

All they had to do was touch her and she'd start breathing again. She never had apnoea episodes when she was in my arms, only when she was lying alone. The doctors told me she was a high-risk candidate for SIDS. They convinced me she needed a monitor at home. I agreed, but it turned out to be a nightmare for the whole family.

They told me I wasn't allowed to have her in bed with me, so she slept alone with the monitor. The monitor went off every night, probably false alarms, and no one could sleep. I kept her on the monitor but moved her right next to me in my bed. We both slept wonderfully, and the monitor alarm never went off again.

I'm quite certain that my presence kept prompting her to breathe until she grew out of her tendency towards apnoea. My touch and my closeness were all she needed. (...)

Dr. William Sears (born 1939 in Alton, Illinois) is an American paediatrician who, together with his wife Martha Sears, coined the term "attachment parenting". He completed his paediatric training at Harvard Medical School's Children's Hospital in Boston and at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, and is an Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the University of California, Irvine. Together with Martha, he has written more than 40 books on pregnancy, birth, and parenting, including the bestseller "The Baby Book".