Soft toys for comfort and connection (transitional object) during times of separation from their parent for babies over seven months of ageīetween eight and nine months of age babies begin to become aware of the separation between themselves and the parent figure.
Parents and other carers are advised to keep soft toys out of the sleeping environment for babies under seven months of age as they may cover the nose and mouth and interfere with breathing. Toys can colonise infection when used for babies in Neonatal Intensive Care Units or Special Care Baby Units 9. Toys which are hung across the cot should be removed once the child can push on hands and knees or is 5 months of age whichever comes earliest 8. Small toys, toy parts and toys on strings are a major cause of asphyxial fatalities caused by accidental suffocation and strangulation in babies and choking episodes in young children 7. There have been cases of asphyxia in cots cluttered with soft toys and where an infant has slipped out of the sleeping environment onto toys and clothes placed near to the cot 6. Soft toys can act in a similar way as a pillow 5. The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recorded the death of a 4-month-old associated with prone sleeping position involving the closure of the child’s airway by a stuffed toy. The prone position significantly increases the risk of sudden and unexpected infant death, including SIDS. Pillow-like objects have the potential for asphyxiation and have been used as a prop to keep babies on the side, and infants have subsequently rolled onto their stomachs 4. The American Academy of Pediatrics 3 recommends that soft surfaces and gas trapping objects, such as soft toys and lamb skins, be avoided in an infant’s sleeping environment. Current research supports infant safety guidelines to ensure that quilts, doonas, duvets, pillows, lambskins, soft toys and cot bumpers are not in the infant sleeping environment. Physiological studies indicate that facial obstruction by soft bedding may lead to complete airway obstruction, and/or hyperthermia, 1 and/or accidental suffocation by rebreathing 2. Soft objects in the cot can be a suffocation risk. Soft toys should never be placed in the sleeping environment of an infant under seven months of age. Soft toys and babies under twelve months of age
Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 24, 442-46. (1985) Children’s Attachment to Soft Objects at Bedtime, Child Rearing, and Child Development. Source: Mahalski, PA, Silva PA, and Spears GFS. The object signifies that the infant has moved from a sense of his/herself merged with mother, to being a separate individual. Transitional objects, such as soft toys are created by the baby to ‘build an illusion’ to represent mother and all that mother represents. Some babies over seven months of age may appreciate a small object such as a soft toy to provide comfort and connection (transitional object 1) during times of separation from their parent.ġ. Seven-month-old babies are more likely to explore objects in their sleeping environments than younger babies.It is therefore advised not to place soft toys and other soft objects in the cot for babies under seven months of age.
The risk posed by suffocation by the presence of soft objects in the baby’s sleeping environment outweighs any benefit to the baby from a soft toy.Keep soft toys out of the sleeping environment for babies under seven months of age because they may cover the nose and mouth and interfere with breathing.
0 kommentar(er)
