Pennsylvania Nannies Ban Swaddling in Day Care

Pennsylvania has effectively banned swaddling babies in day care because it could possibly be dangerous
Why shouldn't your baby look like a burrito?Georges de la TourI had my fourth child recently and, like his older sisters, have been swaddling him for every nap and at bedtime. Also like his sisters, the baby is going to a wonderful local day care. I was shocked when the day care administrator politely informed me that our son could not be swaddled for naps. In the three years since my third child began day care, Pennsylvania, along with several other states, has changed day care regulations to include a ban on swaddling.

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The basis for the ban stems from “Caring for our Children: National Health and Safety Performance Standards Guidelines for Early Care and Education Programs,” a guidebook produced by the HHS-funded National Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care and Early Education (NRC) in conjunction with the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Public Health Association. “In child care settings," the manual states, “swaddling is not necessary or recommended.”

Until 2011 there were no rules about swaddling in day care. “Swaddling wasn’t part of Caring for Our Children before [the 2011 edition],” an employee at the NRC helpfully explained during a phone interview. “The optimal age for children to be in group care settings is three months and [so we looked at whether babies should] still be swaddled after three months.”

According to the NRC’s conclusions, swaddling isn’t necessary. The official line is that they are “worried about monitoring children in a group care environment. Swaddling can be done differently by different providers, i.e., incorrectly and blankets [can end up] covering faces. We’re looking at group care environment for blankets becoming loosened.” The unelected busybodies who write these rules are convinced that swaddling isn’t safe because the day care workers may incorrectly wrap the baby, the blanket could come loose, the baby might roll over into the loose material, and then the baby could possibly die of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).

There are no known cases of a baby dying at day care from suffocation by a swaddling blanket. In fact, there has been a 50 percent decrease in SIDS since 1994. Additionally, as Melinda Wenner Moyer reported in Slate, a New Zealand study that tried to determine any bedding-related factors that contribute to SIDS, concluded that tight swaddling significantly decreases the risk of death.

According to Pennsylvania state rules, a baby may not be swaddled in the day care without written authorization from a physician. The regulation states that “Infants shall be placed in the sleeping position recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics (i.e., on their backs) unless there is a medical reason an infant should not sleep in this position. The medical reason shall be documented in a statement signed by a physician, physician’s assistant or CRNP and placed in the child’s record at the facility.”