Baby Blankets

A blanket is a type of bedding, generally a large, rectangular piece of cloth, intended to keep the user warm, especially while they sleep. Blankets are distinguished from sheets by their thickness and purpose; the thickest sheet is still thinner than the lightest blanket, because blankets are for warmth, while sheets are for hygiene, comfort and aesthetics. Blankets are subdivided into many types, including quilts, duvets, and comforters, depending on their thickness, construction and/or fill material. Electric blankets are heated by electricity.

Blankets were traditionally made of wool, while sheets were made of cotton which is less irritating to the skin. These days, artificial fibers are frequently used for both

Swaddling

Swaddling is an age-old practice of wrapping infants snugly in swaddling cloths, blankets or similar cloth so that movement of the limbs is tightly restricted. Swaddling bands were often used to further restrict the infant. It was commonly believed that this was essential for the infants to get a proper posture.

Mothers have swaddled their babies throughout history. Votive statuettes have been found in the tombs of Ancient Greek and Roman women who died in childbirth, displaying babies in swaddling clothes. The most famous record of swaddling is probably found in the Bible:

"And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn." (St. Luke, II, 6, 7.)

Clothes were sometimes worn over the swaddling clothes. During Tudor times, there were several different clothes needed to wrap a baby (for the wealthy). In the case of the children of James III of Scotland, the children wore several caps, a shirt, a square band “bed”, which bounded from the breast to the feet and up again, a long band of swaddling clothes (roller), a tube waistcoat that bound the arms and roller and a blanket. Babies would be dressed like this for up to one year.

In the seventeenth century the opinion towards swaddling began to change. In 1693 John Locke, in his publication Some Thoughts Concerning Education, became a lobbyist for not bounding babies at all. This thought was very controversial during the time, but slowly gained ground, first in England and later elsewhere in Europe.

For instance Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote in his book Emile: Or, On Education, 1762:

"The child has hardly left the mother's womb, it has hardly begun to move and stretch its limbs, when it is given new bonds. It is wrapped in swaddling bands, laid down with its head fixed, its legs stretched out, and its arms by its sides; it is wound round with linen and bandages of all sorts so that it cannot move. .... Whence comes this unreasonable custom? From an unnatural practice. Since mothers despise their primary duty and do not wish to nurse their own children, they have had to entrust them to mercenary women. These women thus become mothers to a stranger's children, who by nature mean so little to them that they seek only to spare themselves trouble. A child unswaddled would need constant watching; well swaddled it is cast into a corner and its cries are ignored. .... It is claimed that infants left free would assume faulty positions and make movements which might injure the proper development of their limbs. This is one of the vain rationalizations of our false wisdom which experience has never confirmed. Out of the multitude of children who grow up with the full use of their limbs among nations wiser than ourselves, you never find one who hurts himself or maims himself; their movements are too feeble to be dangerous, and when they assume an injurious position, pain warns them to change it."

Modern swaddling
 
Although the extreme form of swaddling has fallen out of favour in the Western world, many Eastern cultures and tribal people still use it.

A modified form of swaddling is still popular today as a means of settling and soothing irritable infants. The lengthy swaddling cloths of mediaeval Madonna and Child paintings are now replaced with receiving blankets or flannelette sheets. The confinement is supposed to provide warmth and security for a baby who has recently left the womb. Today, many midwives swaddle infants soon after birth and it is now a standard newborn care practice in many hospitals.

Recent medical studies showed that swaddling appears to be a positioning technique that can enhance neuromuscular development of the very low birth weight infant and that it might have a role in further lowering