Listening to our babies cry for hours on end can be pretty trying for any new parent, but luckily swaddling does seem to help calm them down a bit, providing some much needed relief (for all parties involved). However, now there is new research suggesting that swaddling your baby may actually cause him to have hip problems. So you may stop him from being colicky, but he may have to eventually have surgery to correct the damage done by swaddling him. Well isn't that just great?
Supposedly some doctors are seeing a rise in the number of cases of hip dysplasia, which they attribute to more and more parents swaddling their babies too tightly. Babies' ligaments are relaxed so they are flexible during birth, and they strengthen and heal naturally after the baby is born. But swaddling causes their legs to be forcefully straightened, which puts a damper on allowing their joints to fix themselves.
But wait a minute, isn't getting your baby all nice and tight and bundled up so they feel safe and secure kind of the whole point of swaddling? I thought it was supposed to make them feel like they were still in the womb, which in turn helps them be less fussy and stop the incessant bouts of crying. Isn't a happy baby a good thing?
Just look at my little guy's face in the photo above, for example. Doesn't he look totally content all wrapped up like a tiny burrito? OMG. We swaddled him a L-O-T as a newborn. My husband actually used to brag about his amazing swaddling skills like he was some sort of baby whisperer. Luckily, it looks like we are in the clear as far as hip dysplasia goes, but I would've felt terrible if he'd had a problem simply because we wrapped him up because we were trying to stop him from crying.
This sounds like yet another situation where parents simply can't win; however, doctors still see swaddling as safe and harmless -- as long as the baby isn't wrapped too tightly and can still freely move his legs under the blanket. If you do plan on swaddling, a good rule of thumb is to make sure that your little one can still bend his legs. If he can't, then odds are good that the swaddle is too tight, and you should unwrap him and start over. Better safe than sorry, right?
The swaddling demonstration in the video clip below is a good one -- notice how the baby is still able to kick her feet even though she is swaddled.
Do you find that swaddling your baby helps calm him/her down?
Image via Mary Fischer
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Comments 16
Having worked at a hospital, I because a swaddle master! But I've never swaddled a baby so their legs are straightened? That seems weird to me. The tightness is most helpful keeping the arms held down. The rest of the goal is to keep feet wrapped up, but not harnessed tightly. There are some fairly easy techniques for doing this, and the key is to use a big enough blanket. Using tiny ones makes you pull harder than you would otherwise.
There is definitely a right way to do it, Grandmothers are experts at it, mini tought me , and it was perfect, not too tight, not too loose, baby was warm and happy.
There are babies that just hate it, like my niece, so she was never swadled.
We use a swaddler that has velcro on it and is already "pre wrapped' or whatever. But I would like to know where she got a receiving blanket that big o.o all the ones I find are thin and tiny, that one in the video looks awesome.
Neither of the kids like swaddling. We tried it, but eventually gave it up for footed sleepers instead.
My daughter hated being swaddled from the very first moment she was wrapped up. I kept trying to tell the nurses she didn't like it, heck she just spent a long time cramped up in my not-so-large self, she can finally stretch out and she digs it! lol She is now nearly 4 and she still hates being wrapped up when trying to sleep.