Toward an Integrated Anthropology of Infant Sleep

Abstract

This article provides a novel synthesis of anthropological research on infant sleep, focusing on work in biological and sociocultural anthropology in the past decade. First, we briefly review early biological anthropological research into infant sleep from 1987 to 2007, which provided the evidence base for the argument that proximate parent-infant sleep combined with lactation represents a complex set of adaptations that constitute the human evolutionary norm. This work challenged the Western pediatric infant sleep research paradigm, which positioned formula-or bottle-fed solitary sleeping infants as the basis for research and universal models about human infant sleep. Next, we address how recent research has built on these foundations and extended anthropological insights into new aspects of infant sleep. Biological anthropologists, who continue to lead this research, have advanced into the hormonal and behavioral ecology of parent-infant sleep and trade-offs in nighttime care and parent-infant conflict. Moreover, they have made significant progress in translating anthropological research into policy and practice in clinical and health delivery settings. Until recently, sociocultural anthropology has primarily addressed infant sleep as part of broader endeavors, without an explicit focus on infant sleep. We highlight key ethnographic works that shed light on the cultural normalcy and interembodied experience of shared maternal-infant sleep with breastfeeding that help de-center Western discourses of infant sleep. We conclude by discussing future research agendas to forward an integrated anthropology of human infant sleep that considers its full biological and sociocultural context. Integrated anthropological approaches to infant sleep not only present a path forward for novel cross-subfield anthropological research but could help guide more effective and equitable approaches to maternal-infant health. [nighttime care, parenting, infancy, sleep]RESUMEN Este artículo provee una síntesis novedosa de la investigación antropológica sobre el sueño de infantes, enfocándose en el trabajo en antropología biológica y sociocultural en la década pasada. Primero, brevemente revisamos la investigación antropológica biológica temprana en el sueño de infantes desde 1987 a 2007, la cual proveyó la evidencia base para el argumento que el sueño padres-infante cercano combinado con la lactación representa un complejo conjunto de adaptaciones que constituye la norma evolucionaria humana. Este trabajo reta el paradigma occidental de la investigación pediátrica en el sueño de infantes, el cual posiciona los bebés durmiendo solitarios alimentados con fórmula o biberón como la base de la investigación y modelos universales acerca del sueño de infantes humanos. Luego, abordamos cómo la investigación reciente ha construido sobre estas bases y extendido los conocimientos antropológicos en nuevos aspectos del sueño de infantes. Antropólogos biológicos, quienes continúan liderando esta investigación, han avanzado en la ecología hormonal y co...

What Is “Normal” Infant Sleep? Why We Still Do Not Know

“…From an anthropological approach, studies of human infant sleep must focus on its biological and sociocultural context, particularly the “cultural normalcy” of breastsleeping (Ball et al., 2019). Current knowledge about infant sleep is based on assumptions made by 20th-century Western experts based on then-current cultural practices, which emphasized that optimal, desirable, “normal” sleep for infants was solitary and continuous sleep without night waking.…”

“…What the limits are and how far they can be stretched without interfering with normal physiological and neurodevelopment is not currently known. Thus, an approach to “normal” human infant sleep based in understanding breastsleeping as a complex set of maternal and infant adaptations for shared, social sleep that is species-typical for humans (Ball et al., 2019) is necessary.…”

“…For example, 96% of psychological research includes samples from WEIRD countries, where fewer than 15% of people of the world live. Thus, the oft-repeated Westernism about “sleeping like a baby” to refer to long, deep, solitary sleep (Bartick et al., 2018) is an artifact of a medicalized view of infant care and sleep that is incompatible with anthropological findings of how human biology evolved or with cross-cultural research showing how people around the world sleep (Ball et al., 2019).…”

“…Ball et al. (2019) discuss this phenomenon in terms of how parents choose to allocate their maternal investment, all of which involve some sort of risk.…”

Mother–Infant Co-Sleeping and Maternally Reported Infant Breathing Distress in the UK Millennium Cohort

“…The global distribution of cultures in which the norm is for infants to sleep alone suggests that mother-infant physical separation at night is historically recent, and is part of a model of infant care which emphasises early independence currently found in many Western European societies and nations colonised by Western European people in the last few hundred years [12]. Mother-infant separation at night is uncommon in other cultures [13].…”