What can I do to prevent my baby from spinning in his sleep?
The milestone of the first turn is a joyfully awaited moment for most parents. Children who have already learned to turn, perform this movement again and again and sometimes turn on their stomachs at night. The prone position as sleeping position is considered a risk factor for sudden infant death, the cause of which is still unknown.
However, the prone position is not a death sentence, but only a risk factor. Children usually have the reflex to turn their head far enough to expose their mouth and nose and allow them to breathe. For this it is important that the mattress is not too soft and that there are no cuddly toys and blankets in the crib.
Parents can practice turning back with the child in the supine position and make a habit of lying on its back by always putting the baby down on its back to sleep. Fixation options are not recommended as movement during sleep is a natural behavior. Monitoring mats for the position and vital functions of the child also only make sense in individual cases, for example if a sibling has died of sudden infant death. Special sleep positioners, which are to hold the baby in the supine position, can even increase the danger of sudden infant death and should not be used. Babies turn in their sleep and this behavior is quite normal and not a death sentence.
Turning around in the abdomen to the birth position
The turning of the newborn in the abdomen plays an important role in the birth process. A distinction is made between birth positions that allow natural birth and birth-impossible positions that make a caesarean section necessary, for example. In the normal birth process, the baby is born head first and passes through various positions one after the other.
The different positions are described as if you were looking at the mother from below. At first, the child’s head is positioned crosswise in the pelvic entrance. In obstetrics, this is called a high transverse position.
This means that the child looks to one side of the mother. A distinction is made between the first and second position, depending on the position of the back. In the first position, the child’s back points to the left.
The child therefore looks to the right side. After that, the child still slides head first further down towards the pelvic exit. The child makes two 45°C turns counterclockwise one after the other.
The head is now straight. In obstetrics, this is known as a deep straightness. From this position, the child comes to lie in the so-called “front occipital position”.
This means that the child looks backwards and the back of the head is the first to come into daylight. In addition to this normal birth process, there are various other positions in which the child can turn and which can prevent a natural birth.