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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDo babies cry at night to stop parents from making more babies?
A Harvard evolutionary biologist thinks babies nighttime crying spells are a form of birth control.
David Haig hypothesizes that babies demand food at all hours of the night to exhaust their mothers and prevent them from ovulating. This works to the babys advantage, Haig believes, because if the mother cant become pregnant and have another child, the baby is likely to get more attention and more food and improve its chances for survival.
In our modern-day society this seems a little far-fetched, but hundreds of years ago, when birth control didnt exist and people hunted and gathered for their food, Haigs evolutionary theory is plausible.
Todays society more commonly assumes that babies wake in the night because they need food, but Haig claims that babies get plenty of nourishment even if they sleep through the night. Around-the-clock feedings are entirely unnecessary for babies to maintain a healthy weight. Haig theorizes babies cry to keep their mothers infertile. In a paper for Evolution, Medicine and Public Health, he writes babies waking at night to suckle is an adaptation of infants to extend their mothers lactational amenorrhea.
Lactational amenorrhea the temporary infertility that occurs when a woman is not menstruating and fully breastfeeding is a controversial topic. Many women assume theyre not ovulating in the first few months after giving birth so they dont go on birth control or use protectionand then they end up getting pregnant. Nursing isnt a fool-proof form of birth control. But according to the Mayo Clinic, within the first 6 months postpartum, lactational amenorrhea in women who are exclusively breastfeeding is 98 percent effective in preventing pregnancy, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Read More: http://blog.sfgate.com/sfmoms/2014/04/17/do-babies-cry-at-night-to-stop-parents-from-making-more-babies/
Democracyinkind
(4,015 posts)Some valid science mixed in with creative speculation. At least it's clearly labelled as "hypothesizes".
Kber
(5,043 posts)There's an 8 year difference between our kids for various reasons, but not getting enough sleep to make whoopi is in the top 5.
I say it's a wonder we didn't divorce in the two years after our son was born, but DH points out we were too fucking tired to undertake such a project.
Eldest is almost done with High School and going off to college soon. Youngest learned to sleep soundly from birth. (God bless her!)
Marriage is much healthier without the sleep deprevation.
Separation
(1,975 posts)I can't remember one night with her waking us up. I had baby night duty and weekend duty as momma had her all day. But she hardly ever got fussy. Which totally had us unprepared for our son.
Our son was born 15 months later. Let's just say he didn't stop crying until he was a year and a half old.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)And get it on. Breast feeding has more control as a bc. Though not a guarentee
Viva_La_Revolution
(28,791 posts)breastfeeding as birth control did not work for me. Or getting up every night with a crying baby.
LeftyMom
(49,212 posts)GobBluth
(109 posts)when he was 5-months. hmmmmmmm. We figured it out. Just got more creative.