Arguments about co-sleeping - whether it is right or not - do not subside. (15.02.2016)

Dr. James McKenna ( James J. McKenna ) - professor anthropology , Director of Behavioral laboratories Mother-child sleep ( the Mother - Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory ) at the university Notre Dame. He is a world-renowned expert on infant sleep, particularly the practice of co-sleeping while breastfeeding. In our conversation, he shared his findings on co-sleeping, biphasic sleep patterns, and offered practical advice for parents of newborns.

You have supported co-sleeping (hereinafter CC) - tell us about your research into organizing this type of sleep. In which cultures is it common? What are the benefits?
My research into mother-child CC began when my wife and I found out she was pregnant. Like most parents expecting their first child, we rushed to buy all the books on child care. But after reading several books on how to best care for a newborn, we found ourselves in the middle, between two conclusions: either everything I had learned about anthropology, my specialty, was wrong, or Western patterns and advice on how to care for a baby have no relevance to children at all. Perhaps this is due to the fact that modern Western cultural ideologies and social values have a definition of what is expected of children and what they should become when they grow up, instead of who children actually are and what they need.

In any introductory biological anthropology class, students learn that the human infant is the most vulnerable, the most contact-dependent, the slowest-growing, and the most dependent of all primate mammals, because humans are born neurologically prematurely relative to other primate mammals. In order for a human infant to pass safely through the maternal pelvic opening that humans need to walk upright, the infant must be born with only 25% of its future adult brain capacity. This means that physiological systems cannot function optimally without contact with the mother's body, which continues to "regulate" the infant much as it did during gestation. Ashley Montagu, my personal intellectual heroine, calls human infants " extero-gestational ," meaning carried from the outside. Touching an infant changes its breathing, body temperature, growth rate, blood pressure, stress level, etc. In other words, the mother's body is the only environment to which the human baby is adapted. As Dr. Winnicott (Donald Winnicott , a famous child physiologist) said: "There is no such thing as a "newborn", there is always a "newborn and someone else".

Here is a deeply truthful and scientific starting point for understanding why babies never accept or agree with the message that they should sleep alone. Sleeping alone as a baby creates a neurobiological crisis for the human newborn because the micro-environment is ecologically invalid and does not meet the fundamental needs of human babies. In fact, sleeping alone in a room and not breastfeeding is now recognized as a separate risk factor for SIDS - a fact that explains why most of the world has never heard of SIDS.

When my son was born, I discovered that I could change his breathing by changing my own, as if we were in sync with each other. My research later confirmed that mother and baby's breathing is regulated by each other's presence - the sounds of inhaling and exhaling, the rise and fall of their chests, the carbon dioxide one exhales and the other inhales, causing the next breath to speed up! I have noted in scientific papers that this is another cue to remind babies to breathe, a safety net in case their breathing falters . My wife and I were shocked to read what pediatric sleep researchers had to say about normal human infant sleep, the idea that babies should "self-soothe." Even then, we knew it was a cultural construct with no empirical basis.

I was studying the negative physiological effects of short-term maternal separation in neonatal primates - effects on heart rate, breathing, body temperature, susceptibility to viruses, cortisol levels, digestion and growth in general. How could I be surprised that the most immature primate of all - us - are even more sensitive to all sensory cues? Holding, carrying and co-sleeping with a baby is not only a great social idea, it is an important investment in the baby's well-being. I decided to take what I knew about primate behaviour and apply it to us humans, and test whether nighttime contact (breastfeeding and bed-sharing) really affects human infants in the ways I described, and what happens when infants sleep alone. I led a team of scientists who documented for the first time the behavioural and physiological effects of infants sleeping alone, and what co-sleeping with a breastfed infant looks like.

We have shown how the sensory systems of mothers and infants mutually influence each other. Not only does the mother change the quality of the infant's sleep and physiological state, but the infant also regulates the mother's behavior and physiological status.

It is important to remember that while the idea of bed sharing has spread and evolved, modern beds and bedding have not. We need safe environments for bed sharing. But when combined with breastfeeding, bed sharing can be protective. We now know that many breastfeeding mothers choose bed sharing because it allows them to sleep more, and improves breastfeeding and bonding with their baby.

When done safely, co-sleeping makes mothers (and fathers!) and babies happier and has a positive effect on growing children. Of course, mothers should not be judged or accused of being irresponsible for co-sleeping with their babies. In fact, 90% of all human beings, in one form or another, practice co-sleeping with their babies!

You've been quoted as saying that people do tend to have biphasic sleep, saying, "In America, the norm is that you go to bed at 11 p.m. and sleep like a dead person until 7 a.m., and if you don't, you have a pathology - insomnia."
How do you respond to headlines that put a strict limit on the amount of sleep a person "must" get?

Human metabolism tends to slow down in the afternoon, and our biology likely favors some form of biphasic sleep. The fact that most people across cultures can modify this biological trait no doubt reflects our evolutionary past in the tropics, when there was a need to escape the intense heat of the day.

Cultural values underscore, if not regulate, how and when we sleep. In the US, there is an expression, "I don't want to be caught sleeping," which suggests that daytime sleep is a kind of disorder. In other cultures, by the way, daytime sleep or siestas are encouraged.
The evolutionary need to be alert during sleep and to wake up quickly allowed early humans to adapt to changing social, physiological, and emotional challenges. And so it is important to respect the individuality of norm and to consider overall health from multiple perspectives. I feel uncomfortable when I read these headlines with sweeping statements that can cause anxiety and worry in people with different sleep habits, especially if they feel well rested during the day. And when all the diseases and syndromes are attributed to chronic sleep deprivation, it is necessary to recognize that in reality, assessing cause and effect is very difficult.

As an infant sleep expert, what tips can you give to parents of newborns to help their baby (and themselves) sleep?

Do what works for your family, trust yourself, you know your child better than any outside authority. You spend the most time with your child, and every child is different. Babies, children, and their parents interact in many different ways. In fact, there is no one-size-fits-all model for any of the relationships we develop. When it comes to sleep management, many families have very loose ideas about where their child "should" sleep. Parents with less rigid, inflexible ideas about how and where their child should sleep are much happier and less frustrated when their children fail to do what they "should" do, like sleep soundly through the night.

Above all, remember that babies do not have an "agenda"; they are not trying to bully or manipulate you. With such undeveloped little brains, they are as close to their genes and instincts as a human being can be, and have very little control over their behavior. In the first six or seven months of life, they have no "wants," only needs. Always remember that babies are as much "victims" of their own behavior as you probably are.

The key to satisfying parenting is to not accept what others think you should do if it doesn't work for you. Rather, be open to how the constellations of relationships that hold your family together interact and connect with the decisions that work for you. Try not to judge your baby's sleep. Don't confuse the medical good of nighttime sleep with the morality of "good babies" sleeping soundly through the night. After all, the worst cultural invention for parents of all time is the notion of a "good baby."