Nighttime Parenting in New Zealand
Anne Heritage
Auckland, New Zealand
From: LEAVEN, Vol. 28 No. 5, September-October 1993, p. 79
We provide articles
from our publications from previous years for reference for our Leaders and
members. Readers are cautioned to remember that research and medical information
change over time
Of the many pressures the
mothers in Western Society experience, the issue of whether or not to
attend to a baby's needs at night must surely be near the top of the
list of awkward topics that can crop up at Series Meetings. In New Zealand,
La Leche League Leaders have the dual problem of mothers being exposed
to a sleep training programme so well publicized that here in Auckland
it is almost a household name, and the New Zealand Cot Death Study that
rated co-sleeping as the fourth major risk factor in Sudden Infant Death
Syndrome (SIDS).
It seems very easy for mothers
attending Series Meetings to pick up the message that the family bed
is the only way to deal with wakeful babies at night. In my Group we
have had the experience of mothers receiving this message at a time
when only one of four Leaders was sleeping with her baby (and she tended
to be reticent on the subject). We came to the conclusion that the idea
of bed-sharing is so unusual that even one reference to it at an LLL
meeting is startling enough to link it forever with La Leche League
in some mothers' minds. These days, whenever the joys of the family
bed are extolled at meetings, we make sure that an "old hand"
is primed to mention an alternative way of attending to her baby's nighttime
needs.
As many Leaders have found,
it is just as likely that the benefits of a sleep training programme
will be brought up by a mother at a Series Meeting as the benefits of
the family bed. The sleep programme in Auckland comes complete with
parental training, a book, and a supportive counselor, and in our LLL
Group we have had occasions when a mother is adamant that this "method"
is exactly what more parents should know about.
In our minds we may disagree
with the mother who has decided to include a full night's sleep as part
of her parenting, but we cannot know the exact circumstances leading
to her making that decision. A stressed mother, deprived of rest and
under pressure from her partner to "return to normal," may
well view eight hours of uninterrupted sleep each night as critical
to her own well-being and that of her marriage. In all probability,
until attending an LLL meeting, she was unaware that any alternatives
to a sleep programme exist. However, a friendly welcome, hearing references
from other mothers to their nighttime practices, and browsing through
the Group Library to see books such as William Sears' NIGHTTIME PARENTING
and [i]Caring for Babies at Night [/i](by New Zealand author Jane Elizabeth)
may well provide food for thought for that mother with a future baby.
The standard LLL approach - of making every mother who comes to us feel
special and that her concerns about breastfeeding her baby have been
listened to - is, in my experience, more likely than anything else to
open her mind to new ideas.
From October 1991 onwards,
New Zealand Leaders have had a real problem when presented with mothers'
concerns about the announcement from the Cot Death Study that bedsharing
increases the risk of a baby dying of SIDS. The data from the study
"proved" the risk, and publicity about this fourth factor
was nationwide. (The first three risk factors to be identified, incidentally,
were putting a baby to sleep in the prone position, parental smoking,
and artificial feeding.) Mothers who were interested in the philosophical
or practical aspects of the family bed became too fearful of their babies'
safety to try it. Yet not one member of the LLL New Zealand Board believed
that co-sleeping - in itself - was a dangerous practice for babies.
Our Leaders were already aware that when the topic arose at meetings,
it should be stressed that certain measures were outlined in the study
as contributing factors. To avoid these the family should sleep on a
firm mattress, neither parent should be affected by drugs or alcohol,
and the baby should be lightly dressed to avoid overheating.
Our faith in our own experience
and that of La Leche League was supported late last year when further
analysis of data from the Cot Death Study established that the link
between SIDS and bed-sharing was, in fact, largely attributable to parental
smoking. No fanfare of publicity heralded this discovery. It seems to
me that the "bed-sharing is risky" message ties in too well
with Western society's standard belief about where babies belong at
night - despite the fact that co-sleeping is a traditional practice
in some cultures. One journalist writing about SIDS research in the
[i]New Zealand Listener[/i] commented that: "Part of the confusion
surrounding the four cot death prevention messages arises from some
campaigners qualifying those messages according to their own personal
prejudices/influences." (She was referring to the fact that the
preventive effect of breastfeeding against SIDS was not being well publicized.)
While I was pleased that a journalist could see this problem, as a Leader
I am still faced at meetings with mothers who heard only the first message
about bed-sharing and have heard nothing about the significant link
of smoking. LLL New Zealand's statement about the safety measures required
for co-sleeping now include the avoidance of smoking as well as of drugs
and alcohol.
When the data from the New
Zealand Cot Death Study was first published and included breastfeeding
as a preventive factor, La Leche League was, of course, pleased. As
time went by, however, it became obvious that the same emphasis was
not going to be given to artificial feeding as was being given to the
first two risks, not putting your baby to sleep on his/her stomach and
not smoking. Then when the fourth risk factor was announced, that of
co-sleeping, we were faced with an added complication which we didn't
need. However, just as time and science proved that LLL's Founders were
right to insist that breastfeeding was best for babies, so too we need
to have faith that one day Western society will recognise that the basic
mammalian practice of mothers sleeping with their young is not only
practical but safe and beneficial for both (or all three, or four, or
five . . .) parties concerned.
References
Dwyer, T et al. Sudden infant
death syndrome - insights from epidemiological research. J Epid Commun
Hlth 1992; 46:98-102.
Mitchell, E.A. et al. Results
from the first year of the New Zealand Cot death study. NZ Med J 1991;
104:71-76.
Mitchell, E.A. at al. Four
modifiable and other major risk factors for cot death: The New Zealand
Study. J Paediatr Child Health 1992; 28 Suppi 1:53-58.
Scragg, L.K. et al. Evaluation
of the cot death prevention programme in South Auckland. NZ Med J 1993;
106:8-10.
Page last edited Sun Oct 14 09:31:10 UTC 2007.
