Week 1 Post 2

While reading Chapter 1, I found the studies to be the most interesting out of all the information that I had learned.  In my earlier discussion on Desire2Learn I talked about the study done with American mothers and their toddlers as well as Chinese mothers and their toddlers.  I also found the study of the sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) to be both interesting and very informative.  I thought it helped me to better understand the scientific method because of the way the scientist (Susan Beal) researched and collected her data.  This was personally really interesting because my sister just had a baby a few months ago.  The question of whether or not my sister should lay her daughter on her stomach was brought up by family members.  When my mom became a mother for the first time it was very common for mothers to lay their babies on the stomachs.  However, because of Beal’s curiosity and research she quickly discovered that, that was the primary reason for infant deaths.  Her research had found enough data to prove her point and because of that there has been a decrease in infant death.  Another reason why I found this study to be so interesting was because I just heard on the radio about a more recent research study discussing the problem with laying infants on their backs.  The problem this research study found was that because babies are being laid on their backs rather than their stomachs, they are starting to develop a soft spot on the back of their heads.  This soft spot may cause the baby to be prone to brain or head injuries as they grow up.  After hearing this I immediately called my sister to get her thoughts on this topic.  My sister however, was already aware of this topic for infants because of all the pregnancy books she had read during her pregnancy.  My sister said that when she lays my niece to take a nap she puts her on her belly because that way my sister can check up on her and then when she lays my niece down for bedtime, that is when she puts on her back.  My sister said she does this because that’s what one of her pregnancy books said to do and seems to be working.