Babywearing a newborn

My newborn is not so new anymore (already 6 weeks old!), but I started wearing him in a sling for the first time when he was just 5 days old.

5-day old Little Brother in a woven wrap

I often get asked on what the best way is to wear such a tiny baby. I already wrote previously about how important it is to position your baby in the correct way: with their back arched and their legs spread so their knees are higher than their bottom (froggy legs). This is hard to accomplish in most of the structured carriers (like Ergo), because the baby's legs are too small to fit in the carrier properly when they are newborns. The Ergo does have a baby insert, but even there it is quite difficult to get the baby positioned properly. Many people use a Babybjorn for their newborn, but with those it is impossible to attain the recommended position for the baby. So my answer is always that it's best to wear your newborn in a wrap. 

Wraps come either stretchy (like the Moby) or woven (like the one I'm using in the picture). I like woven wraps better because once you know how to tie them you have more control than with a stretchy wrap. Also, BlueEyes was born in the middle of the summer and where we live a stretchy wrap, with three layers of thick cotton was WAY too hot. Tying a wrap might seem challenging at first, but with a bit of practice it's almost like tying your shoe laces. 

Here's a good video (that's not me) of how to do an FWCC (front wrap cross carry) using a woven wrap. I sometimes put a rolled up wash cloth in the top rail of the wrap to add some head support.

And here's a good video (also not me) of how to put your newborn in a stretchy wrap:

 

So how many papers does having a baby cost?

I think we've all read the correspondence piece in Nature yesterday on how we don't need to worry about gender bias, because it really all comes down to women having babies and therefore publishing less papers. Lukas Koube, the author, already wrote this as a comment last year, but apparently Nature still thought this piece was worthy of being put in the journal. I don't think I need to add anything to what Melissa WilsonSayres wrote about it yesterday. She already says that it really is possible to be a scientist AND a parent, and that babies are often made by more than one person, and that the other parent (often, but not always a man) can also pitch in. And as we established last week, science is about generating ideas (or not?) and I might as well generate a scientific idea while nursing, or while changing a diaper.

Okay maybe I do want to add something: Really, Nature? Did you think someone who has published zero scientific papers knows whether you can publish papers while pregnant or taking care of a baby? And Lukas Koube, do you really think that that is the only thing holding women in science back?!

But it is something that is on my mind often: how many papers would I have had during this post-doc if I wouldn't have had children? Would I have worked harder and/or longer? I can say that I've become a lot more efficient since having BlueEyes. Perhaps I'm not in the lab as long, but I am very productive while I'm there (and so is my husband I have to add). But let's be scientific and calculate this: When I leave here in two months I will have been a post-doc for four years, in which I have had 2 children. I have taken 3 and 4 months of leave*, so that adds up to 7 months of not doing experiments (although currently a tech is doing some of my experiments). Also, during my pregnancies I was less productive than during non-pregnant periods because of being nauseous and tired and foggy (although working also helped to keep my mind off of feeling crappy)**. And the 1+ year of sleep deprivation also didn't add to productivity (but that was divided mostly equal between my husband and me). So say that I missed somewhere between 6 months to a year in productivity out of four years. That's 12.5-25% of my post-doc. I think that's an overestimation, but that would mean that instead of 4 papers I would have 3. Or instead of one or more high impact factor papers I would have medium impact factor papers.

BUT there are so many more factors to this: could better mentoring have led to more productivity (YES!), are publications in high impact factor journals dependent on which field you work in (yes), whether your data are negative (yes), whether stuff works like it's supposed to (yes), etc etc.

So to conclude: assuming I make it through the "post-doc to faculty bottle neck", in the bigger scheme of my scientific career this is going to be peanuts. If I am a scientist for the next 35 years (until I'm 65), then that 6 months to a year is only 1-2% of the time. And not every woman has children. So any disproportion of female to male authors more than 1% is due to something else than having babies. There, Lukas Koube. I just used some science to calculate this WHILE AT HOME WITH A BABY!

The biggest problem right now: using my precious nap time to blog about this instead of work on a paper...

* I know that some people (are able to) take more leave, and I also realize that many female scientists (at least me) won't be able to sit at home for 3 months without thinking or doing any science.
** Here I should add that my pregnancies were pretty smooth sailing, and I know that for some it can be 9 months of total agony. And for some people the process of becoming pregnant takes a lot of mental, emotional and physical energy.

We made a co-sleeper!

Normally, I save all my craftiness for in the lab. When not in the lab, I don't really enjoy making crafty things, and if I ever attempt, I'm horrible at finishing projects. This is illustrated by the fact that I have several unfinished craft projects in my old room in my parents' house. Nowadays, I just don't really try it anymore. But last Friday Dr. BrownEyes and I did a very crafty thing: we made a co-sleeper from our IKEA Somnat crib and our IKEA Malm bed. Ours is not as fancy as this example from a slightly different crib, but I'm still very proud of the result.
We used this equation:

The Malm bed.

 +

The crib that BlueEyes used for maybe 2 months, after which we realized we kept walking back and forth and he kept ending up in our bed anyway.

 =

A huge bed, so prospective baby can co-sleep safely.

In short, we removed the side of the crib (which is a feature this crib already has), we elevated the crib with wooden blocks and since the Malm bed has a wooden edge next to the mattress, when elevated just enough, the crib mattress can lay on that wooden edge and align nicely with the big mattress. We pushed the crib against the wall and the bed against the crib and will fill the hole on the left in the crib with rolled-up towels, so the two mattresses are snug against each other.

Neuroscientist Dick Swaab says gender specific toys are a natural consequence of brain development

My homecountry is getting ready for Sinterklaas, which means lots of people need to buy toys and the large toy stores send these big books full of ads to people. Bart Smit, a large toy store in my homecountry, sent a book full of ads containing this one:

Translation of pink text:"You want to be as good as mommy!"

Indeed, not very gender neutral, and it gets even worse when on subsequent pages all the sciency toys are advertised with just boys.

Last night this was discussed in one of my homecountry’s late night tv shows “Pauw & Witteman”, where one of the guests involved in this discussion was Dr. Dick Swaab, a neuroscientist and former head of the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience. You might think that a scientist is well aware of all the sociological science showing that when girls are presented with stereotypes like this (pink vacuum cleaners, women being the ones doing housework while men do science), they perform worse on things like math and science, and that therefore it would be good to try to get rid of these stereotypical images. On the contrary, Dr. Swaab stated that both research on monkeys and his own experience with his son and daughter (yes, n=1) showed that girls like to play with dolls and boys like to play with cars. He literally said that the only time when this is not the case, is when individuals have been exposed to toxins in utero. So according to him, it was totally justified to show people these stereotypical images of girls doing housework and boys doing science, because that was what they were programmed to do anyway. Yay neuroscience…. Perhaps not surprisingly, at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, out of the 20 research team leaders, only three are female. I could not find on the website how many of the people that clean this institute are male and female for comparison…

The (faulty) neuroscience behind attachment parenting

Yesterday, I read this article on Slate.com about how sleep training (‘crying it out’) may not be as dangerous as some groups may lead you to believe it is. Frequent readers of this blog may know that I haven’t tried much sleep training with BlueEyes, despite his frequent night waking, because I felt more comfortable soothing or nursing him to sleep. And then it is nice to read in books like Sue Gerhardts “Why love matters: how affection shapes a baby’s brain” that this is the ‘right’ thing to do, because neuroscience tells us so. 

But wait a minute, I’m a neuroscientist myself (and one who is very interested in the developing brain too). So why do I read a book about the brain without questioning where those references come from, whether the author interprets them correctly and whether she leaves out any relevant research? Let’s say I was sleep deprived for a while and of course it is nice to hear that the strategy that you’re choosing is the right one, because neuroscience tells us so. But both the Slate article and this paper by Bruce Maxwell (that DrSpouse tweeted to me) show that if you take a good look at the real neuroscience behind these parenting advices, the science is really not that solid. The rationale behind responsive parenting or attachment parenting is that responding adequately to your baby’s needs keeps their cortisol levels low, which is important because high cortisol levels will have lasting, negative effects on the developing brain. However, as I said before, the science is not that solid: evidence either comes from children that are neglected heavily (such as orphans in third world countries), or from animal studies where young monkeys or rats are isolated from their mothers. These results are then extrapolated to children whose parents let them cry it out. Or, as the slate piece points out, the results come from a study that looks at cortisol levels during hospital-based sleep training, but this study really fails to include any relevant control group. However people abuse this study by drawing conclusions that are really not warranted by the data.

So do I still ‘believe’ in my parenting strategy? Yes, because it’s honestly just parenting for lazy people, and it’s a style that seems to work for us. However, I will never again think that I am doing it this way because of the neuroscience evidence, because that is really too thin to draw such firm conclusions. We need to do much better controlled studies, or longitudinal studies looking at the outcomes of different parenting strategies to say things like this. And I think it is sad and even unethical that writers of parenting books and articles take such a one-sided view and lead lay parents to believe that there is scientific evidence for any parenting strategy.

Is bed-sharing unsafe?

The other day I read that "Bed-sharing raises cot death (SIDS) risk fivefold". You probably know that we have been co-sleeping (as in bed-sharing) with BlueEyes since he was about 5 months and we might co-sleep with prospective baby from a much earlier age. So I thought "Yikes!" when I read this press release about a study by Carpenter et al. However, there are a number of limitations to this study, which have been nicely summarized by here at EvolutionaryParenting.com. This is the summary of ten important variables that have not been included in this paper:

1. The researchers importantly did not consider whether the bedsharing was planned. Previous research from Venneman (2009) showed no increased risk in planned bedsharing (versus unplanned). This is an incredibly important omission.
2. The paper did not consider the effects of the mother smoking during pregnancy, only smoking post birth. This is a missing risk factor.
3. Breastfeeding information is too limited to draw conclusions. No difference has been drawn between frequency and percentage of breastfeeds versus formula feeds for those ‘partially feeding’.
4. The paper only considered ‘illegal drug use’. Many postnatal mothers (0-12weeks after the birth) are prescribed analgesic medication for related birth induced injuries including but not limited to Caesarean healing, known to have a sedative effect. This was not considered at all.  This is a missing risk factor.
5. Prematurity was not considered at all. This is a missing risk factor.
6. Parental exhaustion was not considered at all. Some experts suggest this is considered to be less than 4-5 hours sleep in the past 24 hour period, other experts advise parents to use their instinct. Parental exhaustion naturally impacts on responsive to infant cues. This is a missing risk factor.
7. The researchers did not examine the effect of maternal (and paternal) obesity. This is a missing risk factor.
8. No differentiation was made between having one or both parents in the bed and importantly the location of the baby. It is advisable that the mother sleeps in between the father and infant. Equally it was not noted if older siblings were also present in the bed. This is a missing risk factor.
9. The researchers did not consider fully the impact of alcohol consumption by the father when bedsharing. This is a missing risk factor.
10. No mention was made of whether parents were aware of the risks of bedsharing and how to minimize these before sharing a bed with their infant.

And to end, here are guidelines for safe co-sleeping from James McKenna's lab website.

On breastfeeding while pregnant.

Before BlueEyes was born I knew I wanted to give breastfeeding a try, but I didn’t have any particular goals in mind. I first wanted to see how things went and if I could even do it. Shortly after he was born he started nursing and it went surprisingly well. I was very lucky and never really had any problems. No clogged ducts, no mastitis, no nipples that were hurting. It was all smooth sailing. 

Before I had BlueEyes, I thought nursing a toddler, let alone a bigger kid, was a bit weird. I guess it doesn’t help that you rarely see people do it. But your own child becomes a toddler very gradually. So slow that you almost don’t realize that he’s not a little baby anymore. So there is no one day when all of a sudden he is a toddler and you ‘have to’ stop nursing. I’m still breastfeeding BlueEyes, because I really don’t see a good reason not to. What I didn’t realize before is that after about a year you can stop pumping at work, because your breasts slowly turn from milk storage units to milk making units (i.e. you make the most milk during a feeding instead of throughout the day). BlueEyes nurses shortly when we come home from daycare, he nurses (a lot) before he goes to bed, and then when he wakes up at night he nurses to fall back to sleep easily. And he nurses when he’s really upset and angry and when that is really the only way to get him to calm down.

And now I’m pregnant and again, before I had BlueEyes I didn’t even realize that that was a thing: breastfeeding while you’re pregnant. Well, it is. And now you know it too ;-).

On babywearing - infant positioning

I’m finally going to do something about the lack of babywearing posts on my blog, so if you’re not here for that, feel free to leave now. If you are here for that; today I’ll talk about how to properly position your baby in a wrap or carrier. How do I know all of this? I had 3 months of maternity leave and lots of procrastination time after that learning about babywearing online and by doing it myself.

Position of the hips and back

When a baby is just born, his spine is in a C-position as opposed to our adult spines that are shaped like the letter S. So to optimally position your baby in a wrap or carrier, you want to imitate as best as you can the natural C-shape of your baby’s spine (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Source

In order for that to happen you want to make sure that his knees are higher than his bottom, which is the way most babies are positioned in the womb too. When a baby grows up and learns to hold his head up and when they learn to crawl their spines are starting to curve more like our adult spines, however even with older babies and toddlers you want to make sure that they are in this position, because it is not only key for proper spine development, but also for the development of their hips (Lots more about his, including references can be found here). So it is important to make sure you have a carrier with a wide seat that supports baby’s legs from one knee to the other. Carriers with a narrower seat will cause your baby to have their knees lower than their bottom, which may cause hip dysplasia, and causes most of baby’s weight to be on their pubic bone instead of divided over their entire upper legs and bottom (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Source

Position of the neck and head

Especially with a really small baby, it is important to make sure that you are not blocking their airway when babywearing. Make sure you can put a finger under their chin and when you’re just starting to wear your baby be mindful of their breathing. The best way to carry a newborn is tummy-to-tummy (like in Figure 1), and not in the cradle carry that is often recommended by manufacturers of stretchy wraps. When wearing your baby tummy-to-tummy, for example in a Front Wrap Cross Carry in a stretchy or woven wrap, make sure he is high enough on your chest that you can give him a kiss on the top of his head.

Facing forward

With what I discussed before about the position of the hip and spine, it is easy to imagine why carrying a baby facing forward is not recommended. It is nearly impossible to get baby’s back in a C-shape when he is with his back against your tummy, and it is also almost impossible to get the knees higher than the bottom in this position. Another argument against having your baby face forward is that it is impossible for the baby to ignore all the stimuli around him, whereas if he is facing you, he can much easier look away in crowded situations. Many people argue that their baby wants to look around and that that is impossible without having them face forward. However a high back carry of hip carry is much more appropriate for this and allows for good positioning of your baby.

Next time I'll talk about the different carriers and wraps that are out there.