Autism and forward facing buggies

There seems little doubt that autism is on the rise.

http://bit.ly/2eTBNdP

How convenient it would be if we could show that the changes here from the early eighties corresponds to a change in the use ( direction ) of baby buggies and prams. I see more and more forward facing buggies but that maybe just the part of London in which I live.

What amazes me is that mothers or child carers allow themselves to sustain the bad practice.

It seems that forward facing buggies have been around for over a century but the imagery from my youth was that prams were always parent facing.

The first baby buggy by Maclaren went on sale in 1967 http://bit.ly/2fgRbxK and though it might be stretching the imagination a bit to correlate the take off in the use of buggies at this point to what must have been the beginning of the beginning of the rise in autism mentioned above I think it would be wrong to ignore it altogether.

Consistently I notice forward facing infants straining backwards to see their parent or carer, or ‘shut up’ by having some food put in their mouth or escaping the world at large by sleeping. If its not one of these scenarios I see an infant with a distressed look on its face.

It seems so intuitive, so utterly natural and logical to have one's infant in constant view thus serving all the modalities of sight, hearing, touch, smell and that vital one of seeing that the infant is not in some serious situation like a coughing fit, even choking - events that cannot be seen from a forward facing disposition nor heard either in a rowdy or very noisy place. Foreward facing the infant is denied visual, auditory, tactile, olefactory interaction with its mother or carer and this is absurd.

Broaching this subject with the mother or carer.

This is always difficult as one's view is interpreted as an admonition and a state of tension is quickly generated. I think the substance of the 2008 study ignores common sense. It is easy to comprehend that bewilderment more that excitement, fear more than pleasure, isolation more than companionship and security, desertion more than love and reassurance figure strongly in the psyche of infants facing forward.
From their first breathe after parturition infants start to learn and from that moment for many years they need reassurance that their environment is safe. The only way that this can happen smoothly is that as each new exposure, incident, visual, auditory, olfactory, taste and touch stimulus is encountered  the infant is assured of it harmlessness or otherwise. This way it learns without distress.

ADULTS SUFFER ANXIETY WHEN EXPOSED TO UNUSUAL ENVIRONMENTS WHEN THEIR IS NO ONE TO ASSURE THEM OF THEIR SAFETY - THIS IS UN-REFUTABLE

THEREFORE HOW MUCH MORE WILL THE INFANT SUFFER - THAT THEY WILL INDEED SUFFER IS COMMON SENSE.

In the aforementioned study heart beat, sleepiness are brought up to qualify anxiety and stress. It admitted that neither were very helpful.

WHAT I WOULD ASK A CARER OR PARENT TO DO IS TO USE COMMON SENSE - YOU CANNOT ASSESS WHAT A STRANGE ENVIRONMENT IS DOING THE INFANT'S BRAIN -

WE ARE NOT SO ADVANCED YET, BUT INTUITIVELY AND OBSERVATIONALLY INFANTS, WHICH MAY BE ONLY DAYS, WEEKS, MONTHS FROM EMERGING FROM THEIR MOTHER'S BELLIES, THAT HAVE THE CONSTANT REASSURANCE ABOUT THE NEWNESS AND PRESENCE OF WHAT THEY ARE CONFRONTED WITH WILL HAVE LOCKED INTO THEIR HEADS MUCH MORE VALID INFORMATION THAN THOSE INFANTS WHO FACING FORWARD, AND AS SUCH DEPRIVED OF THIS REASSURANCE, WILL HAVE TO GUESS WHETHER IT IS GOOD OR BAD -  HAVING TO GUESS WHETHER IT IS GOOD OR BAD ! - ARE  YOU KIDDING -  HOW CAN THEY DO THAT - WHAT IS THEIR REFERENCE POINT - THEY SIMPLY DO NOT KNOW AND WILL ONLY LEARN IN A SECOND HAND MATTER IF AT ALL, WHEN THE INITIAL ALARM, CONFUSION AND  ANXIETY  HAS , HOPEFULLY, GONE AND THAT, SOMEHOW, THEY CAN THEN CORRELATE THAT THEY ARE UNHARMED FROM IT - OF COURSE THEY MAY NEVER BE ABLE TO DO THAT BECAUSE THERE MAY NOT BE TIME BEFORE THE NEXT STRESSFUL STIMULUS AND IN ANY CASE THEIR INHERENT INTELLECTUALITY MAY NOT BE UP TO IT.
SUCH A FAILURE IS REGISTERED IN THE MAP OF THE BRAIN AS NEGATIVE LEARNING
LEARNING BY BITTER EXPERIENCE RATHER THAN LEARNING THROUGH 'ADVICE' AND 'REASSURANCE'.

I have spent years just watching kids and their parents or their guardians in both buggy or pram situations and hands down I see more stress in child facing forward, or its a child with something in its mouth to shut it up or one struggling to turn its head to see its mum than where the child is face to face.
When Sir Muir Gray adds 'Dont worry about the buggy', this is from the common sense point of view I have tried to demonstrate, utter folly.

Infants tasting what will become the lasting loneliness of space

Infants tasting what will be the lasting loneliness of spacel

The word 'lasting' is used because however seemingly unimportant at the time the experiences of infancy place an indelible mark on the function of the infant's brain - nothing that can be seen but changes or perhaps lack of changes that warm and uninterrupted confidence engendering attention makes for better cohesion and bonding later in life.

To help one comprehend the 'fearful nature of being isolated' I would ask the reader to imagine being suddenly plucked up and put in a strange place, one never seen before, and no one to ask, to talk to, to see and get you to believe you are in a safe place. How much more terrifying would it be for an infant, not so long maybe having come from its mother's belly and needing every bit of reassurance that all is well?

The seemingly protective thing thousands of mother’s are seen doing every overcast or rainy day is encapsulating their infants in buggies and prams in a ‘clearish plastic capsule’. The infant in terms of communication might as well be in space.

Nobody would dream of seeing such infants get drenched but the instant covering of them when it threatens to rain in what is a thickish but clear plastic sheet often a fixture or additional item that comes with the pram is akin to sending them for a duration into space.

Often such infants are in forward facing buggies and thus when this ‘cover up’ occurs they are even more isolated than ever from being able to connect to their parent or carer.

What must be quite alarming for the infant is the fact that such definition they can make out is blurred or distorted and the cover up is almost certainly so complete that their crying or wailing is unheard.

As rain is tied up in this issue it is almost certainly overcast or actually dark and possibly night.

I find it hard to imagine what confusion, worry, sense of separation is going on in those infant brains but what ever it is common sense dictates it isn’t healthy and is probably in some small way permanently psychologically damaging and one thing for sure a thing that the infant will never thank you for.

There is no question of allowing the infant to get wet but a cover over it where the mum can be seen and touch and reassure her charge makes serious common sense.

I would venture too that the cover that I have described is left on, it is left on more often than not for longer than is necessary.

If it happens that the lightest touch of a drop or so of warm rain is felt the infant will then appreciate a gentle dabbing and an appropriate protection from it - all part of the assurance that opens up connection in their brains.

Letting the infant get wet is crass stupidity but no parent will allow this to happen - it is the appropriate response to rain that will continue the bonding, sense of security and psychological welfare of the child.

In years to come it is almost certain that MRI imaging of infants brains or even sophisticated psychological testing will show changes that support what I have said - but for time being I know I would take the default scenario of keeping in reassuring touch with the infant, rail, hail or sunshine - they have space trips later in life.

Thinking about baby slings.

One sees an increasing number of infants in slings. I am not sure that all of them are ideal. Of course its nice to see the degree of contact they offer but in some the degree of hyper- extension of the infant's neck is marked and especially if he or she is trying to capture the parents eyes or visa versa. This is thus mostly the situation in the ventral or front loading types. The apposition of the infant against the holder's chest is firm if not actually tight and this manifestly means the infant, being face on, will have its neck and head considerably extended. This is likely to be so uncomfortable that eye contact between parent and infant will be brief.
I am impressed too that the parent has to do a ? mark manoeuvre of the head and neck to look in the infant's eyes, not a comfortable manoeuvre to keep up for any length of time.
Lateral slings are mostly great and off the relaxed and reposed infant contained therein easy viewing of mum or dad and some 'lateral outlook at the world at large.
Soul Slings  These provide a marvellous solution in the lateral sling line. They are one size apparently for the new-born through to todler, of natural materials and very reasonable such that they are affordable for the poor.

On Observing Infants in Prams and Buggies

                    

Let Your Observations Support  The Theme Of This Blog.

I would like to see readers of this blog observe the behavior of infants in both forward and mother facing prams and buggies and get some sort of measure from such observation as to their relative contentment. This should convince those taking the effort that forward facing strollers or prams indeed are cold comfort to the psyche of those so 'ensconced'.
What age of infant does the substance of this blog relate.  It relates to the infant having eye contact, touch, auditory stimulus and smell at close hand right from birth which means positioning them so these can happen. Increasing strength and physical activity enable the developing infant to move to away from such reassuring stimuli as they chose fit –as their assurance and confidence grows –but these attributes aren’t inherent and need to be nurtured.  

One wonders how much the grip or startle reflex, which are inherent and not nurtured and  which tend to go normally around 2 – 4 months  in humans,  is not just primate survival i.e. actually staying safely with ‘mum’ as we see them cling on,  but a virtual  feed-back mechanism reinforcing in its brain that it is safe or else its time to find someone else to cling onto.  Let interest, curiosity, even boredom  in the infant govern the direction of and be the prime mover for its head turning away from the parent – a choice truly impossible in a forward facing pram or buggy.

Triangular thinking as seen by Greenspan and  Shanker  in ‘The First Idea’ embraces triadic interaction ‘among feeling states’,  wherein a Judgement value is placed on the interaction. They suggest this starts after 2 ½  years.

Something present much earlier,  I think could very reasonably be called ‘triangulation’ is easily discernable very soon after birth and relates to how the infant, when confronted with something unusual or someone new rapidly searches for its mother’s eye for approval from a smile, a word, a reassuring touch signalling this is ok, safe and I’m here to back you up. The infant then completes the triangle happily engaging this ‘other’.

 This can’t happen when it does not face the mother but think about what does happen to its brain frame – scariness, strangeness, maybe even danger and who can I turn to tell? With this happening chronically the infant cannot be at peace with itself and dare I say starts to generate an  ambivalence towards its mother from the start, an ambivalence that persists with annoyance, suspicion and even aggression into young adulthood.                                                                          

                                                    

Baby's discontent with smoking out of view.

                                      

   



Failure of Infant Bonding Leads to Violent Teen Behaviour

It seems from the internet that there is a considerable ambivalence from ‘nursery advisors’ of large companies such as John Lewis over the matter of choice over forward facing or parent facing buggies and the suchlike.  I would contend that it defies common sense, common intuitive sense and that such advisors should be castigated for their temerity in offering such advice.

I have spent some several years noticing the attitudes of infants in both situations and the overwhelming  constancy of infants in stress in the forward facing situation rather backs up the notion of a lost opportunity to bond.  Things I see are the infant asleep, or put to quiet with some irksome convenience rubbish or a dummy in its mouth staring blandly into space or twisting its head back to catch mothers attention.  Infants facing forward cry much more.

I have the distinct belief that that an infant deprived  parental endorsement of stimuli received by the child results in ‘a neural non-connection’, an ‘in brain’ failure to acknowledge the stimulus as a safe and happy one as apposed to a stimulus whose safety remains  unknown or ill- defined.

I have a hunch juvenile dysfunction as seems to be expressed in loutish and offensive behaviour is a legacy of a failure or fragmented bonding.  Certainly Freudian psychology would encompass the child’s capacity to seek later revenge for these ‘rides’ in isolation.  Even the excessive covering  of the infant’s face in the rain and sun is to be deplored and the spectacle of the infant under a bubble of plastic  smacks of it being sent on a space trip.

Also the first thing the infant  wants to see when it wakes is it mother’s face, to know she is there; this the default scenario, the ever needed baseline for the rest of intelligence gathering and curiosity.