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DR. MOM ESSENTIAL OIL KIT

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LAVENDER LEMON PEPPERMINT MELALEUCA OREGANO BREATHE DEEP BLUE™

DIGESTZEN^™

ON GUARD^™

CP TG

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Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade^™

Kit contains:

9 - 5ml essential oils Informational CD

Independent Product Consultant

Take care of the people you love most.

practice must always be placed in the overall context of the goals and needs of individual parents.

In regard to another question raised: It is important to reiterate that, once in bed, bottle-feeding mother-baby pairs relate to each other, both behaviorally and physiologically, differently from bedsharing breastfeeding pairs. In fact, it seems prudent to recommend that bottle-feeding infants should sleep not in the parents’ bed, but on a different surface alongside the parents’ bed. Dr. Helen Ball found that, once asleep, bottle-feeding mother-baby pairs arouse less often to each other’s movements and sounds, which suggests that their sleep architecture favors more deep sleep (and less light sleep), which could be dangerous for infants with arousal deficiencies. ³ Dr. Ball also found that, once in bed, bottle-feeding mother-baby pairs exhibit different positions and orientations that are more problematic. For example, compared with breastfeeding mother-baby pairs, bottle-feeding babies were higher in the bed, nearer the bed frame or headboard and closer to pillows (which can obstruct airflow), not below the mother’s arm (mid-chest level), as in the case of a breastfeeding infant. A breastfeeding mother typically sleeps on her side, facing the infant, and tucks her legs up and under the baby, thereby potentially preventing infant and/or mother from assuming a sleep position that might be more risky. ⁴

The photos in the cosleeping montage, which letter writers claimed promoted and/or endorsed unsafe sleep practices, were provided by parents quite independently of our article, which was written before the pictures were seen or presented. That said, these images are a gift, a privilege to view, and reflect lives as lived, whether deemed safe or unsafe. And contrary to the article’s authors or Mothering magazine being irresponsible in publishing them, we suggest that a secondary but critical function is served by their inclusion: We can more easily identify what kinds of risks might find expression in bedsharing environments.

What is missing from these images is anyone’s knowledge of the desire and capacity of the parents pictured to respond in seconds to their infants should those infants need responding to, and how parents can and do help infants avoid

Successful infant caregiving practice

must always be placed in the overall context of the goals

and needs of individual parents.