Swaddling is a very old practice. But what does it mean to swaddle a baby. This is important activity where you wrap your little one in a blanket to be warm, secure and comfortable. We must do there practice so the baby is in a warm temperature for the first days of life. And after a while baby’s body starts to develop their internal heating mechanism.
When you swaddle you must do it properly. If done wrong you can loosen baby’s joints and damage the soft cartilage of the hip socket. This can lead to a hip displacement. As a preventive measure is a good idea to leave room at the bottom of the blanket so the baby can bend his or hers legs.
- First to swaddle, you need to spread the blanket out flat, with one of the corners folded down.
- You should always lay your baby face-up on the blanket, with his or her little head above the corner you first folded.
- Straighten your baby’s left arm, and wrap the left corner of the blanket over your baby’s body and tuck it between his or her right arm and the right side of his or her body.
- Then tuck the right arm down, and fold the right corner of the blanket over your baby’s body and under his or her left side.
- Fold or twist the bottom of the blanket loosely and tuck it under one side of your baby.
- Make sure your baby’s can move his or hers hips, and also make sure the blanket is not too tight. As a measurement you want to be able to get at least two or three fingers between the baby’s chest and the swaddle.
Photo credit: madprime on VisualHunt / CC BY-SA
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