728x90
my iParenting
From Our Sponsors
e-newsletters
Sign up to receive our free weekly e-newsletters

new terms of use
new privacy policy
award-winning products
The iParenting Media Awards program helps parents find the best products for their families.
Home › Articles › Sleep Issues › Tricks of the Trade

Tricks of the Trade

Calming and Sleeping Secrets From Dr. Harvey Karp

By Teri Brown

Pages:  1  2  3  4  

(Perseus Publishing, 1986)," says Dr. Karp. "However, people who work with babies have long had this idea, because they seem so immature at birth. My work was further supported by the research done by my mentor, Dr. Arthur Parmelee Jr., showing the exact immaturities of the brain and how they quickly mature over the first three months."

Waive the Eviction
Dr. Karp loves this concept because it makes it so much clearer to new parents what their job is. It isn't to train their babies or make them learn to be independent. If we are evicting our babies before they are really ready for the world, we need to provide them with a warm, nurturing atmosphere that is as similar to their in utero world as possible.

"Inside [the womb] they get constant holding, rocking, and the noise is louder than a vacuum," says Dr. Karp. "Then suddenly they are born and it is quiet and still ... and we try to make it even quieter! They are missing all the rhythmic, entrancing stimulation of the womb! So even if you hold, rock and shush 12 hours a day (which seems like a lot to us), to Baby it is already a 50-percent cutback ... it's a rip-off! This is upsetting to all babies, but to some it is positively crazy making!"

Man on a Mission
Dr. Karp's mission to help parents and their babies began years ago when he began his pediatric studies in the early 1970s. During his years at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, he was taught that babies scream because of gas pains, and there were only two valid approaches for soothing these unhappy infants.

First, was holding, rocking and pacifiers. If that failed, the second way was to use medicine like sedatives, anti-spasm medicines (to treat stomach cramps) and anti-gas drops. By the late 1970s, however, these three "olutions" were either abandoned or seriously called into question.

After studying pediatrics for three years at Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, he was fully trained as a baby doctor, yet still couldn't help distraught parents relieve their babies' most common problem: crying.

"Although my education was excellent, I felt helpless when it came to caring for frantic newborns," says Dr. Karp. "In 1980, as a fellow in child development at the UCLA School of Medicine, my frustration turned into shock and alarm. There, as a member of the Child Abuse Team, I consulted on several severely injured babies whose screams drove their stressed-out parents to commit horrible acts of abuse."

According to Dr. Karp, one out of every five babies has frequent bouts of screaming for no apparent reason. That means a whole lot of babies who suffer from hours of red-faced, eyes-clenched screaming!

A New York City-based study showed 91 percent of parents with a colicky baby experience severe marital problems. In fact, a baby's cry is the No. 1 reported trigger of shaken baby syndrome. "This is why the parents of unhappy, yet healthy, babies are such heroes," says Dr. Karp. "A baby's scream is one of the most heart wrenching sounds on earth. Despite being bone-tired and bewildered, these moms and dads cuddle their frantic babies for hours, gently trying to calm them despite their pounding hearts, sweating palms and stomachs that are all tied up in knots."

Colic Redefined

Pages:  1  2  3  4  

Want to see more?

Comments

There are no comments for this article yet.Be the first to add a comment.

Post As:
Enter your comment below:
Title
Comment Text
CAPTCHA
Please note that any comments submitted become the property of Disney Family / iParenting and can be edited and posted at our discrection.