Toddler

Baby cribs breed social ills, psychiatrist says. That headline ran in The Toronto Star last February. The story went on to say, among other things, that "leaving babies alone in their cribs at night causes stress in infants that can spark anxiety, narcissism, violence and depression later in life." Today's Parent contacted Michael Commons, the "psychiatrist" in question, to gain some insight into these provocative declarations.

First of all, Commons is not a psychiatrist, but rather a behavioural scientist and psychologist who teaches in the department of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He also denies having said that baby cribs breed social ills. What does he really think? In a nutshell, Commons believes that certain North American parenting practices (having babies sleep alone in cribs, for one) cause unnecessary stress in babies and that this early "emotional learning" may have a negative effect on the way they will cope later in life.

"North American parenting culture overvalues independence in babies and undervalues comforting," he says. "American infants tend to spend more time sleeping alone in cribs, less time in physical contact with their mothers, and their cries are responded to less quickly than babies in many other cultures."

Commons bases his assertions on anthropological studies of several different cultures that he and his collaborator (and wife) Patrice Miller examined. Some of the most striking research concerns the Gusii of Kenya. Gusii infants go through much less emotional stress than American babies, say Commons and Miller. "Gusii mothers maintain almost constant physical contact with their babies, they sleep with them and they respond immediately to their distress."

Commons and Miller are convinced that these early experiences are significant. They theorize that leaving infants uncomforted may cause them to develop excess cortisol, a hormone the brain secretes in response to stress. (Researchers have been able to measure cortisol levels in babies during stressful events, although babies sleeping in cribs have never been tested.) This, they argue, must affect the way the developing brain learns to respond to stress and makes it harder for people to deal with it as they get older.

"I'm not saying babies can avoid all stress," Commons says. "The point is, let's not leave them alone to deal with it. Put most simply, let's respond to and comfort crying babies, so they will learn that when they're stressed, people will help them cope with it.

"I'm not suggesting that all babies who sleep in cribs will grow up emotionally damaged. It's more a case of reducing the odds a little bit. I just want more parents to feel comfortable about touching their babies more often and to feel free to sleep with them."

These assertions do not mean that everything North American parents do is bad, and everything that parents in other cultures do is good, Commons and Miller point out. "Compared to many other cultures, including the Gusii, North American parents engage in more stimulating face- to-face interactions with their babies, which seems to better prepare them for language development and later on for school," says Miller. However, Miller suggests that we can learn something from these other cultures about how to create a comforting atmosphere for babies. " We are very good at jazzing babies up, but not so good at making them feel calm. Surely we can offer our babies both."

September 1998