The Human Pacifier, Part 3

It would be great to have a definitive diagnosis, and know for sure why 5-month-old Andy was waking up every hour. Whatever the reason, it was torturing his mother. And that's not going be a sustainable, optimal environment for Andy.

In this case, it would be a luxury to examine every tree, but I had to see the whole forest, and it was on fire. Sure, the care that most families would get probably wouldn't include trying to fix these problems, and probably wouldn't include even looking for these problems. It just takes too much time. But that's not who I am and not how I practice. And it's not the best thing for the patient.

So I decided not to try the many possible interventions in series, one after another, in a way that would eventually yield a diagnosis and medical approach to the problem. This family needed my help right away, and they couldn't wait around, trying one thing or another just so I could claim a diagnosis. I explained this to them, and they seemed relieved. I suggested doing everything at once. Hopefully, something will work. Once the problem is fixed, we could, if desired, peel back the interventions layer by layer as if an onion. Perhaps in this way, we could arise at some diagnostic insight but not wake up the sleeping baby.

First, let's establish a transition object. The transition is a fairly nonspecific one—perhaps between wake and sleep, or from being held by mommy to not being held by mommy, or maybe between a sense of security and insecurity. Sometimes it's called a security blanket. The most well known, perhaps, is that of Linus, created by Charles Schultz. I suggested that the parents get a baby blanket like those used in the hospital nursery: soft flannel, but nothing fancy, hand-knit, family-heirloom, or large. A hand-towel or even a washcloth will do. Every time the mother nurses the baby, she needs to hold this between the baby's body and her own. It will pick up her scent, breast milk, sweat, and the baby's drool, spit-up, and scent. This too, has been studied. Even babies just a few weeks old can recognize the scent of their own mothers. Whenever the baby is being put to sleep, even if in a parent's arms, the cloth has to be there. Maybe, at those shallow levels of sleep, the sensory feedback gently provided by this transition object will be just the reassurance necessary to send him back to a deeper level of sleep.

I told them to bite the bullet and put the baby in the other room. Yes, get rid of the co-sleeper. Every time the baby is getting to a shallow sleep level, he smells fresh muffins and needs his mother to provide them. I want her to be available to comfort him if needed (this is NOT about crying-it-out), but I want him to work a little harder for it. If you are just barely awake and smell the fresh muffins baking, vs. just barely awake but have to get dressed and drive to the muffin shop. Either way, you get your muffins. But I bet you sleep a little longer if you have to go to the store. I expect that changing his pattern of sleep/wake will not be easy at first. I didn't suggest letting him go cold turkey on this. That's what the transition object is for. How much worse can it get?

The removal of the infant into the other room, I hope, will enable mother to miss some of those subtle vocal cues that she has been conditioned to hear and cause her awakening. Maybe if she's not hearing the baby talk in his sleep, she won't have to wake up unless he really wakes up. And both she and the baby know that he's not really eating all through the night. The nursing for 1-2 minutes is not long enough for a nutritive meal. It's for brief comfort.

The baby's eczema must be treated. I prescribed some lotion with a very weak steroid in it to use on the dry patches and on the dry patch on his scalp. Hopefully, this will relieve the baby's itch and let him sleep better and longer.

If the baby has heartburn, which seems consistent with some observations of the parents, he's not going to like being put down flat, and he'll be harder to comfort and may not sleep as well. We know he seems to sleep better in the swing than in his crib. Why not let him sleep in the swing? I also suggested they let him sleep in the car seat. This will keep him in a much more upright posture (adults with heartburn often sleep with a lot of pillows or with the head of their bed propped up) and keeps him securely snug. I cautioned them not to put the car seat on a table, bed, or any other surface. If they put him to sleep in one, it needs to be on the floor. Even gentle movement of the baby can cause most car seats to move across a surface and fall to the floor.

And if this is reflux, why not treat it? I prescribed some first-line antacid medication. I don't like putting babies or anyone else on medication, but sometimes you have to keep your eyes on the prize, which is helping the baby feel comfortable enough to sleep through the night. My job is not to minimize medication. My job is to make the baby's life better.

I had an assignment for dad, too. I told him that life is tough all over, and he was going to have to pitch in. I wanted him to take the middle-of-the-night feeding if there was one. If not, he would have to take the first feeding of the morning. The baby might indeed get hungry in the wee hours with the new regimen of comforting the baby without nursing every hour. Mom has plenty of pumped milk and the baby will take a bottle. So dad is going to get the big feeding while mom is going to get what I hoped would be at least 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Lastly, they needed to establish a rock-solid bedtime routine. Doctors who treat insomnia note that the overwhelming majority of their adult patients have poor sleep hygiene. That means that they have the TV on, that sometimes they go to bet at 10, sometimes at 2. Maybe they sometimes eat before bed, sometimes not. People of every age respond to the ritualization of sleep, and the establishment of sleep cues. I suggested that every night at their chosen baby bedtime, they have the exact same routine. It might start with turning off most of the lights, then giving the baby a bath. Then they put on a fresh diaper, mother sings him a song while nursing, then more lights go off, then he is put in the crib in the other room (or the swing/car seat as above). With his transition object.

They're coming back in a few weeks. I don't know what has been working or not. When I do, I will post Part 4.

Repeated Lessons

A little hydrocortisone cream was all that was needed to clear up the rash caused by the calendula. The parents had noticed a little rash, and did what parents everywhere would do. They went to the ‘natural pharmacy’ and asked what would be good for a rash.

The rash caused by the calendula cream cleared up within a day or so of starting hydrocortisone. This seemed to control the baby’s mild eczema. So maybe it was natural for me to suppose that this aspect of the baby’s care was under control. when I was in the house, examining the baby on her changing table, I noticed a bottle of moisturizer next to the table. I said to the parents, “That’s for you, right?” The mother said that she used it on the baby. I asked her why she used it on the baby—she said that it made the baby’s skin soft. Was the baby’s skin soft before using the moisturizer? We had a talk about what the baby actually needed on her skin. This baby in particular, given our experience with her eczema and reaction to calendula cream, had sensitive skin at very least.

These were the parents for whom I had to spend a half hour explaining why the hydrocortisone cream wasn’t a dangerous steroid. Even as their baby cried with her rash. How long did the sales clerk have to explain the safety of calendula?

So when they called and said that they need to put their baby to sleep on her stomach, I suspected some detective work might be needed.

It seems to be true that some babies just prefer to sleep on their fronts, and not on their backs. Unfortunately for them, the epidemiology is fairly convincing. Babies placed on their tummies to sleep have about 6 times the risk of SIDS. The right thing to do would be to try and convince these parents that putting her on her back would be the safest thing for the baby.

They told me that the baby didn’t mind being on her back when she was on the changing table. Didn’t mind when on a blanket on the floor. In fact, the baby didn’t mind so much when first placed in the co-sleeper at the beginning of the night. But she would wake up with increasing frequency as the night went on, and was screaming when put down on her back in the early hours of the morning. Desperate at this point, they put her down on her tummy, and she quickly fell asleep.

Maybe it wasn’t the position that was bothering her. I asked them to describe the co-sleeper for me. I asked for and was told all the details. The padded sides were of undyed fair-trade cotton, and the frame was of sustainably-harvested wood, unpainted and unstained. The baby was placed on a very soft unbleached untreated natural Australian fleece.

I stopped them at the fleece.

Wool allergy is actually rare. Most of the people who get itchy with certain types of wool fabric are not truly allergic. They have sensitive skin and it’s irritated by the tough wool fibers. But people can be allergic to a class of natural chemicals called wool alcohols. These chemicals are a major component of lanolin. Lanolin is in a lot of the skin lotions and creams, including medicated creams, that we put on our skin. It’s the major component of creams used on breastfeeding moms.

I suggested they remove the fleece completely, and use a folded towel as padding. They weren’t happy with this plan, since the fleece was sent to them direct from a relative in Australia. I suggested they use a plastic trash bag over the fleece, then a baby blanket or two to keep the baby from getting too sweaty on the plastic. That night, the baby slept on her back.

What was happening was contact dermatitis, an itchy eczema-like rash that we get from something we come in contact with. At the beginning of the night, it wasn’t a problem. As time passed, the baby’s back got more and more irritated. When it was irritated, it became more and more sensitive. The more sensitive it got, the more irritated it became with continued contact with the fleece. By the end of the night, the baby was really uncomfortable and unhappy. When they put her down on her tummy—which was not irritated—she calmed right away and went back to sleep.

These caring parents had the best intentions for the comfort of their baby. My role was really being a seasoned detective, who might know 'usual suspects' when I meet them.

This is a baby with sensitive skin. We should learn, eventually, to be sensitive to that.