A Minute for Parents

Summary

"Tummy Time" Recommended for Infants

Article

By JoAnn Hibbert Hamilton

“Most moms have never even thought about this (i.e. encouraging tummy time). They don’t realize the importance,” states Garry Gardner, an Illinois pediatrician. A local pediatric occupational therapist told me that a lack of tummy time commonly affects normal child development as well as at times has an impact later on academics.

The pediatric academy now encourages infants be placed on their “back to sleep, tummy to play,” says Marian Willinger, special assistant for SIDS at the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (Liz Szabo, “Group Suggests ‘Workout’ to Strengthen Babies,” Deseret News, July 1, 2008, p. A1.).

According to this article, “The number of babies who sleep on their backs has gone from 13 percent to 73 percent since 1992, when the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended it. Deaths from SIDS have fallen by more than half since then, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.”

As a result, there are two problems involved: (1) According to this article 70 percent of parents have little or no understanding of how to provide tummy time. (2) According to Gay Girolami, a physical therapist and member of the Pathways Awareness Foundation medical board, “More and more infants are now on their backs all day as well, spending hours reclining in car seats, bouncers and strollers. That gives them little chance to raise their heads or perform ‘mini push-ups’ to look around” (Ibid.). Rolling over from tummy to back, developmental crawling, pulling up, and visual skills, etc. are often delayed.

Girolami encourages parents to start gradually with tummy time. “She suggests 10 seconds of supervised tummy time for newborns, building up to an hour a day – broken into several segments—by three months” (Ibid.) This time should be made fun with toys and interactive time with others. She adds, “Parents shouldn’t leave infants alone on their stomachs.”

Another suggestion is to start early or the baby will resist. Little Marty Lesner’s mother tries to turn the exercises into a game, kneeling beside a bed or the changing table so that she and Marty are having eye-to-eye contact, letting Marty look at himself in the mirror, changing his position or toys for him to reach for, or enlisting her 3-year-old son to entertain. She said she tries again later if there is more than initial fuss. Most babies will fuss initially, but, as mentioned above, making the activity fun is imperative.

She said that she learned to burp Marty and soothe him on her lap, tummy down. Instead of carrying him against her shoulder, she cradled him on her arm like a football, allowing her son Marty to lift his head and gaze out at the world (Ibid.).

The positions she used are part of “Baby’s First Workout,” free suggestions developed by the Pathways Awareness Foundation, a Chicago-based nonprofit organization that promotes early detection of movement delays. These “tummy time” ideas are available at pathwaysawareness.org.

“In a new survey of 400 physical and occupational therapists conducted for Pathways, two-thirds say they’ve seen an increase in movement delays in the past six years (Ibid.) Again they attribute this to infants sleeping on their backs plus the tendency for parents to overuse bouncers, etc.

Girolami stated that parents don’t need to buy special products. Placing a rolled-up blanket under an infant’s chest works just as well as the pillows sold in baby stores. (Ibid.).

I am aware of mothers who had to involve their one-year-olds in extensive physical therapy to do “catch-up” as a result of not understanding the importance of tummy time. I learned a lot from the Deseret News article and felt you would appreciate my passing on the information.

Past copies of articles can be found in www.clippertoday.com or www.strengthenthefamily.net under “A Minute for Parents.”