ABSTRACT
The practice of swaddling infants – wrapping their bodies and limbs tightly with bands or in a cloth – seems to have originated in Central Asia about 4000 years ago. Quite probably, the practice made sense for people who were converting to a nomadic herding economy and needed to be able to move children easily. Gradually – for Central Asian nomads had many trading contacts with other societies in Eurasia – the practice spread, and it was devised independently in the Americas. Many parents believed it was beneficial to children – encouraging good posture, for example – and it had the huge advantage of keeping infants safe while parents worked nearby. On the other hand, some societies – particularly those located in tropical climates – could not use swaddling for fear of overheating the child. In many parts of Africa, mothers carried (and still carry) children in loose slings on their bodies, while they went about their tasks; many people believe that this method provides particular comfort to a young child. In Western Europe, attacks on swaddling mounted from the seventeenth century onward, around arguments that it unduly restricted a child and inhibited creative, individual development. (We will also see that, compared with many swaddling societies, the West European version had become particularly harsh.) The practice was increasingly abandoned, and Westerners began attacking swaddling practices in other societies and in their own lower social classes as a sign of lack of modern concern for the child. Today, swaddling is still widely practiced in places such as China, Turkey
and other parts of the Middle East, and Russia, in many cases with over 90 percent of all parents using the technique at least for a few months. And it is still attacked. Some doctors believe that swaddling, by limiting motion, promotes deaths from respiratory disease. Critics have also argued that swaddling creates dependent, but also highly emotional personalities, and they sometimes generalize about the deficiencies of whole populations on that basis. Yet swaddling also has its modern defenders. The practice has gained acceptance in places such as the Netherlands, where some parents have reintroduced it on grounds that it comforts children and reduces crying (and therefore adverse adult reactions to crying).
