Book Review: Our Babies, Ourselves
May 5th, 2010
I have been looking for a book like this for the past several months, and had started to believe it didn’t exist! What I was hoping for was a book that talked about how different cultures approach various aspects of infant/toddler care and raising. The book definitely had some of that, but it also had a lot of theory.
Here are some interesting things it covered.
Among various cultures,
- how infants are carried, and for how long each day
- breastfeeding, bottle feeding, and early foods
- how a crying baby is responded to
- how caregivers interact with the infant
The author is interested not just in how childcare is different among various cultures, but why. She suggests that studying these differences, combined with a background of pediatrics and evolutionary theory, can lead us to conclude that some methods are better than others, while in other areas it doesn’t really matter how it is done. “Babies are clearly adaptable, at least within the parameters of their most basic organic needs.” This area of study is newly named “ethnopediatrics.”
The areas in which the author most clearly suggests what method she thinks is best is in the concerning sleeping arrangements and breastfeeding. For preventing SIDS and several other reasons, she supports co-sleeping with the infant, with the infant sleeping on its back next to the mother.
Overall, I found this book very interesting, full of ideas and answers to questions I’ve never even thought to ask. I would have liked more examples of how things are done if different cultures. However, I’ve just started a book that holds lots of promise in that area. It is called “A World of Babies – Imagined Childcare Guides for Seven Societies.”
