Sleep: should you use a baby wedge?

The baby support aims to keep the child lying on his back while he sleeps

Dr E. Briand-Huchet : The supine sleeping position is the safest. But the baby wedge is of no interest. The first selling point is to keep the baby on his back. But why do you want to wedge it? A baby is moving, it’s normal. It allows him to acquire the ability to turn. One day, he’ll be toned enough to get on his stomach. Alone, usually around 4 months. He will then be better equipped to manage to turn his head if he has the necessary strength training. While if he is “taped” to his back by a baby wedge, prevented from moving naturally, he will be less able to react to the prone position, when he will manage to turn around spontaneously.

A baby wedge with cushion would prevent the phenomenon of “flat head”

Dr E. Briand-Huchet: The child will have less of a flat head the more he can move and thus vary his points of support, allowing a more harmonious development of his skull. No study proves the effectiveness of head wedges. Many children sleep on their backs and see their “flat heads” improve as they grow older and lie down less often. The skull remodels with the growth of the brain. Wanting to wedge it to the side is dangerous and it is by nature an unstable position. Often the child slips on his back. Or with a kidney stroke, he ends up on his stomach. If he then puts his nose in the foam, often in memory form, he breathes confined air and chokes.

Some baby wedges come from models used in the hospital

Dr E. Briand-Huchet: There are special facilities for hospitalized premature babies. And indeed, under supervision, a toddler who has a health problem has every benefit in being comfortably installed. To better support care. Corn the derived models, intended for use at home for a term child aged 0-4 months, offer a bed much too soft, in preformed foam. The full term baby is not always comfortable there during digestion, especially with the strap, and he should not be left to sleep there unattended: if he manages to turn around (some do so around 2 months and a half!), it is very difficult for him to move to breathe.

However, some models advance the argument of prevention of unexpected infant death (MIN) …

Dr E. Briand-Huchet : The baby wedge does not prevent unexpected infant death. This is a bad answer to a parental concern. To prevent NID, it is best to follow the sleeping advice : let the baby sleep on his back, without a pillow or quilt, without a bed bumper, without a plush or blanket placed near the face, in a room at 18 ° C and a tobacco-free atmosphere. These simple measures reduce the risk of NID by 75%.

* Head of the Reference Center for Unexpected Infant Death at Antoine Béclère de Clamart Hospital.