A pediatric orthopedic surgeon is warning about the potential for hip problems in babies now that swaddling has made a comeback.
Nicholas Clarke of Southampton University Hospital in England wrote in the Archives of Disease in Childhood that swaddling can be safe, so long as it doesn’t prevent the baby’s legs from bending up and out at the hips – a position that allows for the natural development of hip joints. The legs must not be tightly wrapped, he wrote.
He noted nine of 10 infants in North America are now swaddled in the first six months of life, and demand for swaddling clothes soared by 61% in the U.K. between 2010 and 2011.
Swaddling is used to soothe a baby and help them sleep, but pulling the blanket around the baby too tightly could cause hip misalignment, which could turn into osteoarthritis later in life, Clarke said.
Source: http://bit.ly/1f1HVrL