A method to soothe and promote sleep in crying infants utilizing the transport response

Abstract

Approximately 20%–30% of infants cry excessively and exhibit sleep difficulties for no apparent reason, causing parental stress and even triggering impulsive child maltreatment in a small number of cases.1St James-Roberts I. Halil T. Infant crying patterns in the first year: normal community and clinical findings.J. Child Psychol. Psychiatry. 1991; 32: 951-968https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1991.tb01922.xCrossref PubMed Scopus (256) Google Scholar,2Reijneveld S.A. van der Wal M.F. Brugman E. Sing R.A.H. Verloove-Vanhorick S.P. Infant crying and abuse.Lancet. 2004; 364: 1340-1342https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(04)17191-2Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (249) Google Scholar,3Barr R.G. Trent R.B. Cross J. Age-related incidence curve of hospitalized shaken baby syndrome cases: convergent evidence for crying as a trigger to shaking.Child Abuse Negl. 2006; 30: 7-16https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2005.06.009Crossref PubMed Scopus (281) Google Scholar,4Kurth E. 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Neurosci. 2018; 12: 204https://doi.org/10.3389/fncel.2018.00204Crossref PubMed Scopus (7) Google Scholar In this study, we disentangled complex infant responses to maternal holding and transport by combining subsecond-scale, event-locked physiological analyses with dynamic mother-infant interactions. Infant cry was attenuated either by maternal carrying or by reciprocal motion provided by a moving cot, but not by maternal holding. Five-minute carrying promoted sleep for crying infants even in the daytime when these infants were usually awake, but not for non-crying infants. Maternal laydown of sleeping infants into a cot exerted bimodal effects, either interrupting or deepening the infants’ sleep. During laydown, sleeping infants were alerted most consistently by the initiation of maternal detachment, then calmed after the completion of maternal detachment in a successful laydown. Finally, the sleep outcome after laydown was associated with the sleep duration before the laydown onset. These data propose a “5-min carrying, 5- to 8- min sitting” scheme for attending to infant cry and sleep difficulties, which should be further substantiated in future studies.Video abstracteyJraWQiOiI4ZjUxYWNhY2IzYjhiNjNlNzFlYmIzYWFmYTU5NmZmYyIsImFsZyI6IlJTMjU2In0.eyJzdWIiOiJhODk5MjAyZDI2MmZjNzMxN2E0YjU3YzJhMWMwODFjYiIsImtpZCI6IjhmNTFhY2FjYjNiOGI2M2U3MWViYjNhYWZhNTk2ZmZjIiwiZXhwIjoxNjk0ODMwMTI1fQ.bnimlDf9ZEs5_PHQgl1JkayHJbSKgqDXJqUANgV_uRxMLCIhRkIVP_VQf6NcNL6DTuxvNSlXsyKCQBvzV3NSYGJtsl5Y4GVgvlMyOQ1AJnKfXyECMGcleGgRXHD_8AENwvBaoFIie8SNgquVhRNhuT4FpfF2nybvy9lMqZd9eo0CVIz0Dg8G2Ja-zE2AizC2PCXXl-0dtbAnQn0aZSnPdCPfWGpUhKudOZUI_Nazz_9n2SFQ4nrXmT4ItZ1J2pEyy3Sw5nibGJd_vOZ789S-AWzvXK8o6zSNT0cciKN3IVCjd8il5Z0FvIrs5dOXUxzOYpjL8Rw67GNWlEJdSgD4lg(mp4, (24.55 MB) Download video

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