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This video's information more easily applies to the young baby under 6 weeks of age. The more I worked with babies and their families, the more faith I developed, that the main things to do to have a contented young baby was to ensure that they were well fed to demand, and that they were warm enough. After that, the baby starts to acclimatize to his/her environment and more things in the environment upset them, so it becomes more complex diagnosing what is upsetting a baby. Even though, I had a letter from a mother of a 5 month old baby who said:


 


HISTORY OF COT DEATH ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA'S RECOMMENDATION TO NOT OVERHEAT BABIES

 

·        Overheating not included in the New Zealand Cot Death Study 1989

·        Australia included not to overheat in Cot Death prevention recommendations approx 1993.

·        Approx 1994 Cot Death Assoc. brought in recommendations of how to not overheat baby.

·        During 1994-1997 prolific ideas of what to do to not overheat a baby abounded.

·        1997 (approx.) Overheating removed from the Cot Death Prevention recommendations. There is a small paragraph in the text to not overheat or have a baby too cold.

 

So after all, the recommendation is to make the baby comfortable,

 and we all knew that!! Coral's video gives you information of how to tell if your baby is too hot or too cold, taking into account the individual and hereditary differences between people.

 

SOME CHALLENGING THOUGHTS

 

·        Many families world wide cannot afford heating especially central heating. Many of the families I attended as a community midwife live in freezing homes.

·        A baby's head is 1/3rd of its body surface area. Leaving a baby's head uncovered is equivalent to an adult having their blankets only to their chest.

·        A baby with head and shoulders exposed would have 1/2 of the baby's surface area, equivalent to an adult having their blankets only to their waist.

·        I bushwalk and go camping in the snow and we have to be very careful to not suffer from exposure. Covering our heads is a very important measure to prevent hypothermia. If we place our hands on a person's abdomen and the person's core body temperature is low, the persons is in grave danger with hypothermia. If a person is feeling cold but not suffering from hypothermia if you place your hand on their abdomen it will feel warm. The advice given to parents, to see if their baby is too cold, is to place their hands on the chest or abdomen and if it is warm then they say the baby is not cold.

·        Cotton is a summer cool fabric and it takes many layers to provide the equivalent warmth of one layer of a woollen blanket (depending on the thickness of the fabric). I grew up in the time of freezing homes, and we all had some 3-5 layers of very thick woollen blankets plus hot water bottles. The continental quilts we use today, use these woollen blankets as their standard of measurement. So if a parent is sleeping with a 5 blanket continental quilt then he or she is sleeping with the equivalent of 5 thick woollen blankets.

·        The fibrepile fabrics on the market were designed for the Antarctic to have a lighter replacement for wool. The thick fluffy fibrepile blankets can be the equivalent of 2-3 woollen blankets.

·        I have researched many of the articles supplied by SIDS (the Cot Death Assoc.), and then researched many more trying to find the evidence for the recommendation to not overheat babies. It seems that the articles I read all refer to the study carried out by STANTON as their base truth.

 

Stanton, A.J. 1984           "Overheating and Cotdeath"  The Lancet, November 24 Pp. 1199-1201.

 

I could not find back up evidence for the recommendation when critically analyzing this article.

·        Stanton drew up a description of what he felt was a maximum  standard set of clothing and bedding for a baby in a 18C room, which was "..a vest, stretchsuit, cardigan, sheet, and three single blankets."  Then any baby that had more than his recommendation was over wrapped. He did not describe the type of fabric or thickness of the clothing or bedding.

·        19 of the 34 cotdeath babies were found to be unusually warm after their death.  The rectal temperature was recorded in 15 cases, temperatures ranged from 37C to 42C. 2-9 hours approx. after the deaths. The 42C was recorded 5 hours after the death. Stanton's assumption was that the pyrexia of the infants was due to overheating and infection.

·        The babies died quietly.

·        Some of the parents stated that their baby was dressed as usual for sleep.

 

My experience of babies who are too hot is that they scream the place down, and the babies in Stanton's Study died quietly. Asian families, who adhere to their cultural practices, keep both mother and baby very warm after birth. Attending these homes I found them to be excessively warm. Yet Nelson et al (1989) reported that the SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) rate is low in Asians generally at 0.5/1000 live births and in Hong Kong even lower at 0.3/1000 live births. The New Zealand incidence was 8.1/1000 live births.

( Nelson, E.A.S. et al 1989 " Sleeping position and Infant Bedding may predispose to Hyperthermia and the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome" The Lancet Jan.28, Pp. 199-200. )

 

I feel that the raised temperature of these cotdeath babies has to be due to something where the baby manufactured the heat internally, like viral or bacterial infections or a sudden allergic response to some factor.

 

Coral's video describes how you can get to know your own child's clothing and bedding requirements, as the baby will tell you if only you know how to read the signs. The video also describes the experience of four families when they first came home from hospital with their newborn.