Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id LAA16026 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 1 May 2001 11:21:21 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745E26@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Baby Not Crawling? Reason Seems to Be Less Tummy Time Date: Tue, 1 May 2001 11:17:28 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Interesting.
Apparently, I never crawled, only ever pushing myself around on my butt, and
didn't start walking till I was about two (I am an inherently lazy person
:-)). I was, according to my Mum, beginning to talk at 6 months, however.
This was pre the definition of SIDS and strategies to avoid it were offered.
Another useless personal anecdote.
Vincent
> ----------
> From: Wade T.Smith
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2001 5:11 pm
> To: Memetics Discussion List
> Subject: Fwd: Baby Not Crawling? Reason Seems to Be Less Tummy Time
>
> At least one still has to learn to walk before one can run....
>
> - Wade
>
> ******************
>
> Baby Not Crawling? Reason Seems to Be Less Tummy Time
>
> By GINA KOLATA and HOWARD MARKEL
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/national/29CRAW.html?pagewanted=print
>
> When Gary Slaughter turned 6 months old, his mother, Charlene, began
> waiting for him to crawl. After all, that is when the books said that
> babies can be expected to reach this developmental milestone. But nothing
> happened. He did not even roll over.
>
> Ms. Slaughter, a teacher in Ann Arbor, Mich., was seriously concerned.
> Her pediatrician told her not to worry, but, even though Gary was sitting
> up when he turned 7 months old on April 15, he still is not crawling and
> seems perfectly content to lie on his back. When Ms. Slaughter tried to
> nudge Gary along by putting him on his stomach, he protested. "He cries
> and he doesn't like it," she said.
>
> It is, many pediatricians said, a common situation. They are noticing
> more and more babies who are not lifting their heads when they used to,
> who are not turning over and who are not crawling at 6 to 8 months, when
> popular baby books say they should.
>
> Developmental specialists say they think they know why babies are acting
> this way: it is an entirely benign, but unexpected and unintended,
> consequence of a public health campaign to teach parents to put babies to
> sleep on their backs to prevent sudden infant death syndrome.
>
> An increasing number of babies never crawl at all, pediatricians say,
> going directly from sitting to toddling. And they are seeing more parents
> like Ms. Slaughter, who are worried that something is wrong.
>
> Researchers say they have evidence from two studies, one in the United
> States and one in England, that the doctors' impressions reflect a real
> change in infant development.
>
> The studies' researchers emphasize that there seems to be no medical
> consequence to this developmental change. The babies are normal in every
> other way, and they sit up and walk at the same time they always did.
> That, however, can be a subtlety that eludes many parents < and some
> doctors < who know nothing of the studies, both published in 1998 in the
> journal Pediatrics.
>
> "Language skills are far better markers of developmental delay in
> babies," said Dr. Beth Ellen Davis, a developmental pediatrician at the
> Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Wash., who led the American study.
> "But, like it or not, many parents are focused on these physical
> milestones < when they roll over, when they crawl, when they walk."
>
> Dr. Catherine D. DeAngelis, who is editor of The Journal of the American
> Medical Association and a professor of pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins
> University School of Medicine, said she worried that doctors were not
> getting out the message to parents that crawling is not much of a
> milestone.
>
> "Who says you have to crawl before you walk?" Dr. DeAngelis said. "We
> need to reassure parents that this is all within the range of normal
> infant development and that their child is not suffering from any serious
> problem. Otherwise, we set up people for a condition called vulnerable
> child syndrome where, because of a real or perceived illness, parents
> treat their kids with kid gloves, so to speak, and problems really do
> start to appear."
>
> The campaign urging parents to put babies on their backs to sleep, known
> as Back to Sleep, began in this country in 1994, when the American
> Academy of Pediatrics and the United States Public Health Service became
> convinced that although they did not know the cause of sudden infant
> death syndrome, epidemiological evidence indicated that this sleeping
> position could help prevent it. For decades, doctors advised parents to
> put babies on their stomachs to sleep, fearing they could choke if they
> were on their backs. But, nervously at first, they began changing their
> recommendation.
>
> The result, the pediatrics academy reports, is that the percentage of
> American babies sleeping on their backs has increased to more than 70
> percent today from 20 percent before the campaign. And the incidence of
> sudden infant death syndrome has decreased by more than 40 percent.
>
> Babies, it has turned out, liked being on their backs so much that they
> appeared to have no incentive to turn over onto their stomachs.
>
> "If you're lying on your tummy and you want to see the world, you have to
> flip over," said Dr. Ellen Perrin, a developmental and behavioral
> pediatrician at Tufts University School of Medicine and the Floating
> Hospital for Children at the New England Medical Center. "If you're on
> your back, there's no reason to flip onto your tummy."
>
> But then they might not discover how to crawl, Dr. Perrin said. "It's
> totally consistent with what we know about how babies learn during
> infancy," she added.
>
> "The way babies used to learn to crawl was they figured out that if they
> squirmed, they propelled themselves," Dr. Perrin said. "But it just takes
> a lot more understanding than a 5- or 6-month-old infant has to say,
> `Gee, if I'm on my back I can see more, but to move around I have to be
> on my tummy.' "
>
> The best evidence that these developmental changes happened came from
> Britain, where researchers realized they had a perfect opportunity to ask
> whether putting babies on their backs affected the time at which they
> turned over and crawled.
>
> A long-term study of child development, intended to follow nearly 15,000
> infants from birth until adulthood, began in 1990, just as Britain began
> its Back to Sleep campaign.
>
> Dr. Peter Fleming of the University of Bristol, a director of the British
> study, said that at first doctors and parents were wary about the new
> advice, and many doctors suggested that the babies lie on their sides.
> But gradually, as their fears were allayed and data accumulated tying
> sudden infant death syndrome to sleeping on the stomach, virtually all
> doctors began urging parents to keep their babies on their backs.
>
> The British study tracked this change. In the early 1990's, when most
> babies slept on their stomachs, they turned over and crawled when the
> books said they should. Within the last five years, as parents uniformly
> began putting babies on their backs, more and more babies did not roll
> over or crawl on schedule, and increasing numbers never crawled.
>
> But, Dr. Fleming said, the babies were normal by every other measure. "In
> medicine, whenever you introduce something new, you worry that it might
> cause problems," he said. But, he added, that did not happen. "When the
> cohort was 18 months old we looked again at developmental milestones and
> there was absolutely no difference in these children's development," Dr.
> Fleming said.
>
> In the United States, Dr. Davis's study of 351 babies in Washington and
> its suburbs found the same thing. The babies who slept on their backs
> started crawling, on average, at about 9 months, and about a third of
> them never crawled. But the back- sleepers and the stomach-sleepers
> started walking at the same age < on average when they were about a year
> old.
>
> For parents who pore over baby books, these delays can be frightening.
>
> Dr. Leon Eisenberg, a child psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, said
> one mother was so worried that her baby was not crawling at 9 months that
> she insisted on taking the baby to a physical therapist.
>
> But it is hard to blame parents, said Dr. Elizabeth Triggs, a
> pediatrician in private practice in Nashville. "There are some books that
> say babies have to develop in a certain order or they will be warped,"
> Dr. Triggs said. "They say that if you don't crawl before you walk you
> will not develop certain tracks in your brain."
>
> Dr. Michael Lyons, a pediatrician in private practice in Leominster,
> Mass., said he tried to explain to parents that they should not worry if
> their baby did not crawl.
>
> "I say, `Don't even look for that as a milestone anymore,' " Dr. Lyons
> said. For those who are not reassured, he suggests putting the baby on
> its stomach during the day, while they play with the baby. "We say to
> parents, `Have some belly time and stimulate the babies to be happy on
> their bellies.' I'm not sure it makes a difference in terms of crawling
> ability, but it makes a difference for the parents."
>
> Ms. Slaughter, for one, said that she had finally learned to relax about
> the crawling issue.
>
> "The best advice I got was from my mother, who told me to put all the
> baby books down and simply listen to Gary," she said. " `When he crawls,
> he crawls,' she told me."
>
> Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
>
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This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
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