Professor Helen Ball h.l.ball@durham.ac.uk
Professor
Parent-Infant Bed-sharing Behavior: effects of feeding type, and presence of father
Ball, H.L.
Authors
Abstract
An evolutionarily informed perspective on parent-infant sleep contact challenges recommendations regarding appropriate parent-infant sleep practices based on large epidemiological studies. In this study regularly bed-sharing parents and infants participated in an in-home video study of bed-sharing behavior. Ten formula-feeding and ten breast-feeding families were filmed for 3 nights (adjustment, dyadic, and triadic nights) for 8 hours per night. For breast-fed infants, mother-infant orientation, sleep position, frequency of feeding, arousal, and synchronous arousal were all consistent with previous sleep-lab studies of mother-infant bed-sharing behavior, but significant differences were found between formula and breast-fed infants. While breast-feeding mothers shared a bed with their infants in a characteristic manner that provided several safety benefits, formula-feeding mothers shared a bed in a more variable manner with consequences for infant safety. Paternal bed-sharing behavior introduced further variability. Epidemiological case-control studies examining bed-sharing risks and benefits do not normally control for behavioral variables that an evolutionary viewpoint would deem crucial. This study demonstrates how parental behavior affects the bed-sharing experience and indicates that cases and controls in epidemiological studies should be matched for behavioral, as well as sociodemographic, variables.
Citation
Ball, H. (2006). Parent-Infant Bed-sharing Behavior: effects of feeding type, and presence of father. Human Nature, 17(3), 301-318. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-006-1011-1
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Publication Date | Oct 1, 2006 |
Deposit Date | Jan 5, 2009 |
Publicly Available Date | Jan 5, 2009 |
Journal | Human Nature |
Print ISSN | 1045-6767 |
Electronic ISSN | 1936-4776 |
Publisher | Springer |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 17 |
Issue | 3 |
Pages | 301-318 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-006-1011-1 |
Keywords | Bed-sharing, Breast-feeding, Formula-feeding, Infant sleep, Mother-infant behavior. |
Public URL | https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1621335 |
Publisher URL | http://www.metapress.com/content/0xvdfp8g88lw22aq/fulltext.pdf |
Files
Accepted Journal Article
(264 Kb)
PDF
Copyright Statement
The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com
You might also like
Construction of the Views oN Infant Sleep (VNIS) Questionnaire
(2024)
Journal Article
Sleep tight! Adolescent sleep quality across three distinct sleep ecologies
(2023)
Journal Article
Downloadable Citations
About Durham Research Online (DRO)
Administrator e-mail: dro.admin@durham.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2024
Advanced Search