Professional Parents

If a smaller number of families raise children, however, why do the children have to be their own? Why not a system under which "professional parents" take on the childrearing function for others? Raising children, after all, requires skills that are by no means universal. We don't let "just anyone" perform brain surgery or, for that matter, sell stocks and bonds. Even the lowest ranking civil servant is required to pass tests proving competence. Yet we allow virtually anyone, almost without...

 Kangaroo Care and Infant Massage

In the old days, extensive parental contact was discouraged because of fears about injury or infection. Now, however, some hospitals are encouraging parents to spend up to several hours a day holding their preterm infants, preferably upright and skin-to-skin against their bare chest. This approach has been dubbed "kangaroo care" because of its resemblance to early-life marsupials, which are born prematurely but kept warm and nourished in the maternal pouch. Studies have shown several advant...

 The Importance of Vestibular Stimulation in Infants

One study offers particularly provocative evidence of the benefits of vestibular stimulation. These researchers exposed babies, who ranged in age from three to thirteen months, to sixteen sessions of chair spinning: Four times a week for four weeks, the infants were seated on a researcher's lap and spun around ten times in a swivel chair, each spin followed by an abrupt stop. To maximize stimulation of each of the three semicircular canals, the spinning included one or two rotations in each d...