Baby Care Memes
A collection of memes to help me keep track of what behaviors to emulate and avoid during and after pregnancy.
Folksonomies: pregnancy obstetrics baby childbirth
Memes
24 JUL 2011
Conservation Tasks and Reason
Piaget had his own way of assessing brain maturation during this period, using his now-famous "conservation" tasks, try this one out on your tour-to-eight-year-old: fill two identical short, squat glasses with equal volumes of water, and ask your child, "Do the two glasses contain the same amount of water, or does one have more?" Now, pour all the water from one of these 'lasses into a tall, narrow glass, and ask your child the same question.
Four-year-olds almost invariably say that the ta...
1 
A four-year-old cannot grasp the concept of conservation of mass, but an eight-year-old has no problem with it.
20 JUL 2011
The Importance of Tactile Experience in Infants
Nonetheless, our early touch experiences determine the extent of possible tactile sensitivity. They also play a surprisingly potent role in the overall quality of brain development. We have already seen in Chapter 2 how rats raised in a highly enriched environment develop a thicker cerebral cortex and are actually cleverer than rats raised in a standard laboratory environment. A good share of this enriching experience involves tactile sensation. When young rats are provided with new toys, the...Rats provided with a variety of constantly changed toys to play with and those touched by their mothers have larger brains and are more cognitively prepared for the world.
20 JUL 2011
The Importance of Smell and Taste in Infant Development
Olfactory recognition may also be the first step toward human bonding and attachment. As we've seen, newborns quickly learn and prefer the scent of their own mother or other caretaker. Nursing babies clearly have the richest olfactory experience, being bathed several times a day in the odors of their mother's milk and areolar secretions. Nonetheless, bottle-fed babies also can learn their parents' scents rather rapidly, depending on the amount and closeness of their contact. After the breast,...
1 Smell allows an infant to label its world, identifying its mother, father, and siblings; while taste prepares it for the environment it will be born into and influence its preferences for foods within its culture.
20 JUL 2011
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...A technique for helping a preterm infant to regulate their body heat and a daily exercise for stimulating the infant to improve its cognition and responsiveness.
20 JUL 2011
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...Giving babies four "spin" sessions in a chair improved their reflexes and motor skills. Also, jiggling and rocking babies sorts out their discombobulation and allows them to focus and learn for a period of time.
19 JUL 2011
Exercise During Pregnancy
There are two main reasons for concern about exercising during pregnancy. One is that it may reduce the baby's oxygen supply, since exercise, like other sources of stress, reduces blood flow to the uterus. Another risk is overheating. As we have already seen, fetal development is highly sensitive to temperature, and elevations of more than 2^0 C (or above 1020F) can increase the risk of miscarriage and affect the formation of the brain and eyes.
Despite these theoretical concerns, there is ...There are some concerns about the mother exercising during pregnancy, but the benefits appear to outweight the potential deleterious effects and have no apparent effect on the child's IQ.
18 JUL 2011
How Brains Grow Into Bodies
Brain wiring begins with the outgrowth of axons. Once a newborn neuron has migrated, planting its cell body in a permanent position, it sends out a fine axon shoot with an enlarged tip known as a growth cone. At the end of the growth cone are about a dozen long tentacles that shoot out in all directions and act like radar, picking up all manner of navigational signals. They feel out the best-textured surfaces, sniff around for chemical cues, and even use tiny electrical fields to help the axo...Best description yet of the synaptic "pruning" human brains go through as the brain wires up to the body and best reason yet for why children should have rich, mentally-nourishing environments in which to grow so that their synapses don't get unnecessarily pruned, resulting in smaller brains.
08 JUL 2011
Babies Categorize Sounds Before Words
As they hear us talk, babies are busily grouping the sounds they hear into the right categories, the categories their particular language uses. By one year of age, babies' speech categories begin to resemble those of the adults in their culture. Pat conducted some even more complicated experiments with Swedish babies using simple vowels to see how early they start organizing the sounds of their language in an adult-like way. She showed that at six months the process has already begun. The six...Babies learn the sounds of their language, which gives them the ability to distinguish and categorize words later on.
08 JUL 2011
Baby's Cognitive Development Summarized
What are the babies' representations and rules like?
First, the babies' representations are rich and complex. As we've seen, they include ideas about how their face resembles the faces of others, how objects move, and how the sounds of a language are divided. The young babies' world is not simple. Babies translate the input at their eyes and ears into a world full of people with animated, expressive faces and captivating. intricate, rhythmic voices. It's also a world full of objects with co...The sequence of events in a child's development indicates that it's not all learned, there is a programming in the brain that follows a natural course, ready for the world.
29 JUN 2011
How the Mother-Infant Bond Grows Over Time
Evidence that there is some sort of heightened awareness by mothers, caused either by biology or emotions, is seen in a mother's ability soon after birth to recognize her infant by smell and voice alone. In several studies, mothers who had spent only a few hours with their newborns were able to smell out their babies when comparing their shirts with the shirts worn by other babies. Mothers are also pretty good at hearing their infants. Women with new infants in wards usually sleep through the...Mothers grow more attached to their babies as their interactions grow so that the mother can better identify her baby and respond to its cry.
29 JUN 2011
The Importance of the Mother-Infant Bond
In the 1960s a slow revolution in birthing practices began in Western culture. As a result of the influence of John Bowlby's attachment theory and Harry Harlow's infant monkey experiments, the medical establishment realized the importance of physical proximity on the bonding process and babies were not necessarily removed to the nursery. The feminist movement in the 1970s, which helped women assert their wishes, furthered that revolution as it gave female nurses and mothers the support to dem...Mothers separated from their babies are more likely to abuse them, while bonded infants are more responsive.
29 JUN 2011
Mother-Baby Social Play
But there is more to the interaction than a matter of adults putting on i a show. When babies and adults interact, they are partners in an interactive social dance in which they jointly regulate each other, and this dance is essential for the baby's social and psychological development Renowned pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton noticed in his practice that babies and mothers seem to follow a typical pattern of play, a synchronized score that moves from attention to nonattention with both partne...How babies actively seek to engage with mothers socially, connecting with them.
29 JUN 2011
Physiological Effects of Cosleeping with Infants
when they are more used to sleeping alone, sleep differently when with when they are more used to sleeping alone, sleep differently when with their mothers. The babies seem to spend a greater percentage of their sleep time in levels 1-2 and less time at the deeper levels, exhibit more REM sleep, and are awake longer. In other words, they are more often moving among sleep levels, and they sleep lighter.
Christopher Richard, Mosko, and McKenna have also found that most co-sleeping pairs spend ...How cosleeping effects an infant's progression through sleep, with the mother guiding it through the cycles.
29 JUN 2011
Shortening a Baby's Crying Duration
What seems to work best is simple human contact. Peter Wolff long ago demonstrated that picking up a baby works better than anything else to stop any baby from crying. In another study, infant researchers BeU and Ainsworth showed in the 1970s, with a sample of twenty-six infants, that consistent and prompt response by the infant's mother is associated with a decrease in the duration of infant crying. Urs Hunziker and Ronald Barr recently took this idea even further when they experimented with...Nothing works better than carrying the baby and responding quickly to its needs.
29 JUN 2011
The Mother-Infant Dyad
In a more evolutionardy appropriate infant-caretaker scheme, the infant is a social partner, part of a dyad. Both mother and infant are interested in being in equilibrium, that is, in a stable and contented state. This goal is adiieved by mutual regulation, by reciprocity, and by keep¬ ing tabs on each other. This system nicely describes the infant-caretaker pair, and as I have presented in Chapter Two, there is a great deal of evidence that infants and those who love them are attuned to eac...There is a reciprocal relationship between mother and baby and dysfunction occurs when one side does not reciprocate.
29 JUN 2011
Instinctual Breastfeeding
From an evolutionary point of view, it would seem that last-feeding should be one of the more instinctual behaviors, like eating or sleeping or sex. In most mammals, if mothers don't know how to offer their milk or babies don't know how to suckle, the infant dies. If die purpose of reproduction is to pass on genes, it would seem that feeding would be one of the more hard-wired biological behaviors. In explanation, Wiessinger offered this story: A female gorilla, born and raised in a zoo, gave...Breastfeeding is instinctual, so that separating the mother from the infant can prevent it from happening, but there is a cultural aspect to it as well for primates.
29 JUN 2011
Weening Among Human Ancestors
Archaeologists have discovered that since the Pleistocene, humans lave always suckled infants for several years. Using biochemical analysis given human population when its children moved from breast milk to other foods. In one group of skeletons from South Dakota dated between 5500-2000 b.c., children were apparently depending on food other than mother's milk by the time they were twenty months of age.^' Recorded history also tells a similar story. Middle Eastern groups in 3000 B.C. were brea...Folksonomies: evolution breastfeeding
Folksonomies: evolution breastfeeding
A survey of ancient cultures and estimates of when they weened their children onto other foods.
21 MAY 2011
Breast Feeding is Unsanitary
Twenty-six years ago I noticed that our clearheaded, undrugged mothers, who were not strapped down or restrained in any way, eagerly, with mothedy murmurs of joy, reached out to grasp and hold their babies as I placed them on their abdomens. Why not let them hold their babies? I have heard many absurd objections over the years. "The mother's hands and breasts are not sterile!" I personally feel that nonsterility is one of the greatest benefits of breast-feeding. Bacteria are essential to the ...And the bacteria is good for the baby.
21 MAY 2011
The Advantages of Breastfeeding
What are other benefits of breast-feeding? Let's consider a few. We think the Creator intended that your wife should not have an immediate return of her menstrual bleeding after having a baby. She has donated blood to the baby itself (not directly but via the ingredients), and she then loses some incident to its birth. The recovery phase from this loss after the baby is born should not be handicapped by menstruation. It's hard to build up a depleted savings account when regular withdrawals ar...It's healthier for the mother and for the child.
21 MAY 2011
There's No Such Thing as Overdue
In healthy, normal mothers with healthy, normal babies there is no such thing as overdue. This term carries a dire connotation that unjustly scares the daylights out of uninformed people. More women have been unnecessarily forced into long, hard, unprepared labor, more b babies damaged by being made to come through a tough, "green," unripe cervix, because everyone was ready except the baby. It takes an obstetrician with a firm backbone to withstand the onslaught from anxious relatives—"Why ...Folksonomies: pregnancy childbirth
Folksonomies: pregnancy childbirth
The baby will come when it's ready.
21 MAY 2011
The Change in Environment for a Baby Post-Birth
Imagine for a while the nature of the changes in his world that occurred at birth. From 98.6-degree warmth to 70-degree room temperature. From total darkness to glaring overhead lights in the hospital. From relative quiet, where instead of mother's familiar voice and the soothing rhythmical sounds of her body (her heartbeat, breath sounds. etc.) there are sudden loud, unfamiliar, startling noises. From being carried constantly with the rocking motion from Mother's hip movements, to the utter ...Folksonomies: pregnancy childbirth
Folksonomies: pregnancy childbirth
...and changes for the mother as well.
30 MAR 2011
Breast Feeding Fuels Big Brains
The study looked at the average pregnancy term, breast-feeding length and brain size of 128 species of mammals. They saw that between different species brain size at birth was determined by the length of pregnancy, while the brain growth after birth was determined by breast-feeding duration.
[...]
The extreme length of pregnancy and breast-feeding in humans (nine months and three years, respectively) is required for the growth and development of our large brains, which can reach 79 cubic in...Women should breast-feed for at least six months and up to two years to encourage the growth of the infant's brain as much as possible.
17 FEB 2011
10,000 Injuries to Infants a Year from Cribs, Playpens, a...
An estimated 181 654 (95% confidence interval: 148 548–214 761) children younger than 2 years of age were treated in emergency departments in the United States for injuries related to cribs, playpens, and bassinets during the 19-year study period. There was an average of 9561 cases per year or an average of 12.1 injuries per 10 000 children younger than 2 years old per year. Most of the injuries involved cribs (83.2%), followed by playpens (12.6%) and bassinets (4.2%). The most common mecha...Cribs accounted for of 10,000 injuries per year to infants.
References
18 JUL 2011
What's Going on in There? : How the Brain and Mind Develo...
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Eliot , Lise (2000-10-03), What's Going on in There? : How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life, Bantam, Retrieved on 2011-07-18
38 
06 JUL 2011
The Scientist in the Crib: What Early Learning Tells Us A...
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Gopnik , Meltzoff , Kuhl (2001-01-01), The Scientist in the Crib: What Early Learning Tells Us About the Mind, Harper Paperbacks, Retrieved on 2011-07-06
34
29 JUN 2011
Our Babies, Ourselves: How Biology and Culture Shape the ...
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Small , Meredith (1999-05-04), Our Babies, Ourselves: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent, Anchor, Retrieved on 2011-06-29
27
21 MAY 2011
Husband-Coached Childbirth (Fifth Edition): The Bradley M...
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Bradley , Hathaway , Hathaway , Hathaway (2008-05-20), Husband-Coached Childbirth (Fifth Edition): The Bradley Method of Natural Childbirth, Bantam, Retrieved on 2011-05-21
Folksonomies: pregnancy childbirth
Folksonomies: pregnancy childbirth
13
30 MAR 2011
Article: Breast-Feeding Fuels Babies' Big Brains
Electronic/World Wide Web>Internet Article: Welsh, Jennifer (29 March 2011 Time: ), Article: Breast-Feeding Fuels Babies' Big Brains, LiveScience, Retrieved on 2011-03-30Source Material [www.livescience.com]
Folksonomies: pediatrics baby care
Folksonomies: pediatrics baby care
1
17 FEB 2011
Injuries Associated With Cribs, Playpens, and Bassinets A...
Electronic/World Wide Web>Internet Article: Yeh, BS, Rochette, PhD, McKenzie, PhD, MA, Smith, MD, DrPH (February 17, 2011), Injuries Associated With Cribs, Playpens, and Bassinets Among Young Children in the US, 1990–2008, Pediatrics, Retrieved on 2011-02-17Source Material [pediatrics.aappublications.org]
1
