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Human Infancy Symposium Convenes At University Of Notre Dame

A group of prominent international experts will convene at the University of Notre Dame Sept. 28 for a rare cross-disciplinary symposium on human infancy entitled "Back to the Future: The Role of Breast Feeding, Parental Contact and Proximity in Promoting Infant Health."

The one-day symposium, which is free and open to the public, was organized by James J. McKenna, professor of anthropology at Notre Dame, and celebrates the opening of Notre Dame's new Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory. McKenna is widely known for his ground-breaking research advocating cosleeping arrangements for parents and small children. The symposium begins at 8 a.m. in Notre Dame's Center for Continuing Education.

Infant care practices around the world take diverse forms, says McKenna. "Even within one culture, parental caregiving choices and styles vary enormously. The strategies of care that parents adopt can have major influences on both short-term and long-term infant health."

Examples of caregiving choices include whether to breast- or bottle-feed, whether or not to allow the baby to sleep with the mother, how much to hold or carry the infant, and how quickly to respond to an infant's cry.

In addition to McKenna, other researchers participating in the symposium include:

• Peter Fleming, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chair of pediatrics at St. Michaels Hospital, University of Bristol (Great Britain), and director of the Foundation for the Study of Infant Death (Bristol Research Unit). Fleming, highly regarded and perhaps the leading voice in the world on issues related to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, will speak on "Safe Environments for Infant Sleep: Community and Laboratory Investigations of Folk Wisdom."

• Lawrence Gartner, M.D., professor of pediatrics at the University of Chicago and chair of the 1997 Task Force on Breast Feeding for the American Academy of Pediatrics. Gartner will speak on "Breast Feeding: It Seems Incredible But It's Only Biology."

• Ron Barr, professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at McGill University and Montreal Children's Hospital Research Institute, who will speak on "The Mysterious Early Crying Peak in 'Indulgent' and 'Separation' Caregiving Strategies." Barr is an award-winning researcher widely known for his work on infant crying patterns. What he calls "the mysterious early crying peak" is what others have called "colic." Among his many frequently cited papers is one entitled, "Colic: a Clinically Useless Concept."

• Meredith Small, professor of anthropology at Cornell University, on "The Natural History of Babies." One of the country's leading biocultural anthropologists, Small has authored two highly regarded and widely received books for popular audiences: "What's Love Got to Do With It?," which discusses the biology and anthropology of sexual attraction, and "Our Babies Ourselves," which analyzes how biology and culture influence our parenting.

• Michael Lamb, Ph.D., who heads the National Institute of Health's section on social and emotional development in children. Lamb will speak on "Parent-Infant Interaction Across Cultures and Contexts."

• Carol Worthman, professor of anthropology at Emory University, who will speak on "How to Get a Life: The Ethnopediatrics in Infancy." Worthman, a human biologist who developed bioassay techniques to study human hormones, is recognized for her work on the role of stress in children's growth and development, particularly the impact of stress on puberty rates. She also has studied the impact of environmental factors across cultures on mothers' breast feeding behaviors.

• Helen Ball, professor of anthropology at the University of Durham, Great Britain, who will discuss "Triadic Cosleeping in a North English Town." Ball's research is the first to look at family cosleeping arrangements in the natural setting -- the home.

For more information, contact James McKenna at (219) 631-3816.

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