Monday Trivia

Trivia on wrong post.  Jeez , Doink!

Early line

Gary Smyth

Both replys (at Messages) may be accurate but not what I'm looking for. For the rockers think less of convenience. For the hood, think of wives tales. The hood reason is no longer valid. The rockers however are more "scientific" with today's research.

Re: Monday Answer

Gary Smyth

This might be important to all you grandparents and parents out there. The colonials didn�t have the data, but side to side rocking for an infant's cradle is better and safer. I�m giving Bill a gold star. Rocking front to back can cause motion sickness to the point that the infant can choke on its own fluids. Surely colonial mothers through experience knew that. In the case of head to toe rocking infant choking has to do with vertigo and cumulative pressure on the brain stem when lying on the back. In addition, if the baby moves and/or the cradle does not return to horizontal there is the possibility of other severe consequences.

Suspended Rocking Cradles, Positional Asphyxia, and Sudden Infant Death, Jeanne Ackerman, MD; Enid Gilbert-Barness, MD, Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 1997;151(6):573-575.

Abstract

Objective

To describe the risk of unexpected death in infants who are placed in suspended rocking cradles.

Main Outcome Measures

Ten cases of sudden infant death and 5 cases of infant asphyxia with successful resuscitation reported to the Consumer Product Safety Commission were analyzed. The death scene investigation reports and autopsy material were made available for evaluation. All 15 cases implicated a suspended head-to-toe rocking cradle.

Results

Infants were aged 3 months or younger and were found in the facedown prone position when discovered. The cradle was tilted at greater than 5�, and the head was wedged at one end of the cradle. A locking pin was not used in 14 cases. Ten of the 15 infants died. The autopsy reports listed sudden infant death syndrome as the cause of death.

Conclusions:

Suspended rocking cradles represent a potentially lethal sleeping environment and should not be used without a locking pin in place. Infants should be placed in the supine position for sleep. Note that the research was limited to modern suspended cradles that moved head to toe, but rocking head to toe even for an evenings worth of TV in any cradle with no way to fix sight on a specific point (as in the example of an infant) is not worth the risk. Side to side rocking does not seem to generate the dire result of the front to back rocking motion.

According to American Heritage, the hood was incorporated to keep the baby from drafts. In essence it was a logical offshoot of a European wing chair but for infants. It turns out, while elegant, that the hood is purely decorative. In addition, the deeper the hood the more of an opportunity to hit the baby�s head on the coping when lifting it out. In the 1960�s, 70�s and 80�s�s it was found that being exposed to a draft and getting sick (a cold) were not linked. About 50 years ago a group of English scientists carried out an experiment: one group of volunteers wearing wet clothes were sitting in a draft, another one was in a warm room. Finally there was approximately the same amount of those who caught cold in both groups. Thus, the connection between drafts and colds is not well-defined. Later research concluded that the reduction of immunity, makes one fall ill. While a person in a draft may come down with a cold, the draft is not the cause.

The belief that dampness, chilliness and drafts cause colds, though debunked repeatedly in controlled experiments is still widely held�and energetically perpetuated by parents in cautioning children. "Don't get your feet wet, you'll catch cold." Time Magazine, 11/16/1981

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,953215-2,00.html#ixzz0w8yY18qM

In the 2000�s other researchers doing cold temperature studies determined that when the body uses energy to stay warm, there is less energy devoted to the immune system. If the immune system fails then there is a possible link to exposure to cold and wind in a causal role for sickness.