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On the first Christmas, when the Christ child was born, he was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. Swaddling is the tight binding of an infant's arms and legs with cloth so that body movement is completely restricted. Horrific accounts of severe swaddling in which the infant remains bound-up for days, unchanged, in their own urine and excrement, and being bedeviled by flies and other discomforts permeate the history of childhood literature (see DeMause JOURNAL OF PSYCHOHISTORY, Spring 2001).
In the famous "swaddling hypothesis", posed at the beginning of the Cold War by Drs. Geoffrey Gorer and John Rickman in their book, THE PEOPLE OF GREAT RUSSIA (1949), it was argued that severe swaddling, nearly universally practiced throughout the U.S.S.R., was the cause of the cruel, authoritarian, Stalinist-type totalitarian personality that the West so much feared. It was only when the infant was bathed, often in cold water, that it was no longer being kept "tightly under wraps". Swaddling of this kind is still practiced in some lesser developed nations, particularly in the Middle East.
After World War II and the Spock revolution in child care practice, even moderate swaddling was largely discouraged. It was argued that it was artificial, far too restricting of a baby's normal physical movements, robbed an infant of important sensory experiences gained through touch, and caused them to be overly frustrated and emotionally damaged---an infant version of a straight-jacket.
Although severe swaddling is universally condemned by child development experts, it is indeed regarded as child neglect, moderate swaddling is another matter. Moderate swaddling is when the infant is left for short periods of time tightly wrapped-up, never too warm, often bathed, and otherwise well cared for. This form of swaddling may be coming back. In fact, one child development authority argues that moderate swaddling actually accelerates an infant's intellectual development.
Dr. Miles Storfer, president of the Foundation for Brain Research in New York and author of such books as INTELLIGENCE AND GIFTEDNESS (1990), is an authority on boosting human intellectual potential. Dr. Storfer believes that swaddling is vital to speeding-up the growth of a child's mind. Although he has no direct evidence that swaddling boosts intellectual development, he nevertheless argues that it produces "a cognitive state conducive to learning". Indeed, he writes that far from it being a restriction of a baby's "otherwise naturally free condition; rather, it is a logical extension of the warmth and security of the womb". Indeed, "when infants are swaddled soon after birth, they not only accept this restraint but seem to welcome it as comfortable and familiar".
Moreover, far from causing emotional harm, "a major benefit of swaddling is that it reduces the reflexive movements of the arms and legs to which newborns are often subjected. These seemingly purposeless movements tend to startle infants and cause insecurity, confusion, and over-arousal".
In fact, several studies seem to confirm Dr. Storfer's view as to the soothing effects of swaddling. For example, swaddling effectively suppressed infant crying in studies by Dr. Y. Brackbill (CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1971), Drs. S. Riccillo and T. Watterson (BRAIN AND LANGUAGE, 1984), Drs. G. Gerard et al. (JOURNAL OF PEDIATRICS 2002), and Drs. P. Franco et al. (PEDIATRICS, 2005). In the Brackbill study, fed babies who were swaddled had their overall crying time cut by an astounding 60 per cent.
Swaddled infants have long been known to sleep more than non-swaddled babies. However, as Dr. Storfer is quick to point out, they do so "not at the expense of quiet alert time, which increased by 15 per cent", according to some studies. Swaddled babies are also more likely to engage in long, quiet, peaceful sleep and they tend to be calmer over all. Calmness in an infant is usually assessed not only through observation, but also through measurement of body responses. Specifically, cardiac and respiration rates are analyzed. Again, studies seem to support the view that swaddling has a calming effect on infants. For example, an early study in 1965 by Dr. E. Lipton et al, published in PEDIATRICS, compared swaddled and unswaddled infants and found that swaddled infants consistently showed lower cardiac and respiration rates.
Dr. Storfer admits that there are no studies which directly show that swaddling promotes learning. Nevertheless, he contends that the effect of swaddling, although indirect, is still powerful. It soothes, warms, and calms the child so that learning can better take place. In this contention, Dr. Storfer has authorities that might agree with him. For example, the famous Dr. T. Barry Brazelton (along with Dr. T. Nugent) observed that upset newborn infants often require "a layering on of multiple soothing inputs" (for example, arm restriction, holding, rocking, etc.) to reduce agitation (CLINICAL DEVELOPMENTAL MEDICINE, 3rd edition, 1995). Swaddling could be one of these.
Proposing a new swaddling hypothesis of his own, Dr. Storfer regards it as being one of only three practices "highly conducive to cognitive development in general and to the development of verbal skills in particular". The other two practices are "an exceptionally favorable caretaker ratio" and "rocking, holding, singing to, and especially talking to infants", and finally "the encouragement of verbal responses". As such, he views swaddling as one of the most important keys to boosting an infant's intellectual development to its maximum.
In child development, theories of swaddling have come full circle. At the beginning of the Cold War, swaddling supposedly produces the Communist. Now, it supposedly produces the genius.
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Child abuse has long been suspected of increasing a person's risk of developing disease later in life. Now researchers studying inflammation in the bloodstream think they might know why. Previous studies suggested that childhood trauma increases a person's risk of developing heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and other disorders normally associated with obesity in adulthood. To investigate further, Dr. Andrea Danese and colleagues from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College of the University of London monitored 1000 people in New Zealand from birth to the age of 32. They noted any factors that created stress and recorded levels of C-reactive protein in their blood. The protein is a marker of inflammation and has been linked to heart disease. The Danese team found that people who reported having been physically or sexually abused or rejected by their mothers at a young age were twice as likely to have significant levels of C-reactive protein in their blood. [The study is published in the PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCE, 23 January 2007. See NEW SCIENTIST 20 January 2007, p. 8. See BBC NEWS 16 January 2007.]
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