[00:00:00] Dr. Renee White: Knowledge is power, and we are all about empowering the mamas of the world. In each episode, we will unravel and interpret the latest research and evidence-based practices for pregnancy, postpartum, and motherhood. [00:00:15] As mums and researchers ourselves, we have experienced firsthand the overwhelming complexity of information myths and those classic old wives tales.

[00:00:27] Dr. Renee White: I'm Dr. Renee White, and this is the [00:00:30] Science of Motherhood. This episode is proudly brought to you by a brand I personally used and absolutely loved during my breastfeeding journey. Cake maternity. So cake maternity, specializes in [00:00:45] high quality nursing bras that are not only supportive. Functional and incredibly comfortable, but also stylish because you shouldn't have to compromise just because you're a mum.[00:01:00]

[00:01:00] Dr. Renee White: Now, I personally wore cake maternity bras for my entire 15 month breastfeeding journey with my daughter. Um, I am a very full chested woman, and they got [00:01:15] even bigger, um, when I had my beautiful girl. And I remember kind of thinking in hospital, oh my goodness, how am I gonna manage this? Like, I didn't feel comfortable sleeping [00:01:30] at night without some support, but equally like that.

[00:01:35] Dr. Renee White: That feeling of like wearing a bra to bed is just like, ugh, no thanks. And so I remember walking [00:01:45] into my local kind of, you know, bra store. I think I was like five, six days postpartum. And I said to them, I need something that I can sleep with overnight that can, you know, get around town. But you know, that [00:02:00] I wanted something that was wire free, something that felt really luxe against my skin.

[00:02:05] Dr. Renee White: You know how it is, like postpartum, you don't want hard wires and itchy, scratchy stuff at all. I have sensory issues, [00:02:15] um, you know, like the best of us and. Honestly, the woman in the store just said to me, cake, maternity, this one. Absolutely. And I remember trying it on in the change room, and I just thought, oh my God, this [00:02:30] is just pure heaven.

[00:02:31] Dr. Renee White: Like honestly, it felt so nice against my skin and as I said, like I slept in this bra for 15 months. Well, there was multiple bras. Let's be honest. Let's be honest, ladies, there was [00:02:45] more than one. I got two on that day, and then I just kind of, you know. Got more colors and that was just so, so nice to have.

[00:02:55] Dr. Renee White: And it was really, it was supportive and it was lux [00:03:00] against my skin. You know, I could easily have my breast pads in there, super, super comfortable and easy when I was breastfeeding, you know how some of those bras you get and like, you kind of unclip the top and then you kind [00:03:15] of pull that side down to, you know, feed and it's kind of, it's rigid and you're trying to work out where you're gonna put it so it doesn't kind of obstruct your feeding and things like that.

[00:03:27] Dr. Renee White: No, not cake, maternity. [00:03:30] Like this is. Gold. Absolute gold. I loved this bra so, so much. It was so, so good. And cake maternity have come to the party so you know they've got something for every mum or mum to be [00:03:45] with a wide range of sizing. And that's what we love to see from six to 22 bands and a to double J cups.

[00:03:56] Dr. Renee White: You know, whether you are after seamless or flexi [00:04:00] wire or hands-free pumping bras, or even absorbent birthing bras, they have got you covered girls from conception to breastfeeding. You can check out their range at [00:04:15] au.cakematernity.com, as in like a birthday cake cake. Um, and you can use our discount code F YC 15.

[00:04:26] Dr. Renee White: That's FYC 15. To get [00:04:30] 15% off your order, like seriously run, don't walk. These things are so, so good. As I said to you, 15 months of sleeping in one of these bras, like if that's not a testimonial, I don't [00:04:45] know what is.

[00:04:48] Dr. Renee White: Hello and welcome to episode 192 of The Science of Motherhood. I'm your host, Dr. Renee White. Thanks so much for joining me today. I just wanted to do [00:05:00] a really quick shout out for those of you who have been listening to our episodes for a long time. I just wanna say. Thank you so much for those people who've just joined us. Welcome, welcome, [00:05:15] welcome. I have a, I have an ask, it might be a bit big, but I think it could take about, I don't know, 30 seconds.

[00:05:24] Dr. Renee White: If you have been enjoying this podcast, if you have got some sort of, [00:05:30] you know, confidence, you're feeling empowered, you've learnt something new, you've shared it with a friend or a family member, can you do me a favor? Can you pop into your Apple or [00:05:45] Spotify, wherever you are listening to this and just leave a review.

[00:05:49] Dr. Renee White: I would love, I would love a five star review, even if it's just putting stars in would be amazing. Don't have to write anything. Just a review would be amazing. And [00:06:00] I ask this because unfortunately this is just how the world works. If we want to get to more mamas and papas and grandmas and grandpas and uncles and aunties to, you [00:06:15] know, spread the word about how evidence-based, you know, care and pregnancy and postpartum can make a real difference.

[00:06:23] Dr. Renee White: If we wanna be sharing that knowledge, we need reviews. That's how the game works [00:06:30] people. So if you can just pop into your app and just do a quick review, that would be absolutely amazing. I really do appreciate it. Alright. Today's guest, I [00:06:45] have to confess, and I can't remember if I said this in the interview because it's a bit of a blur for me because I tried so hard not to fan girl, but this particular guest I have had on my whiteboard as [00:07:00] someone who I wanted to invite on the podcast for quite some time. I think when I kind of went to rub her name off the, off the whiteboard, you know, when like the, the, the texta has been [00:07:15] on there for so long that you have to go over it with fresh texta to then rub it off. That's kind of what I had to do with today's guest's name.

[00:07:25] Dr. Renee White: A bit of shame to say that, but I finally got the [00:07:30] courage to ask her to come on the podcast and she was very happy to come on. Obviously there was a bit of logistics because of the huge time difference. Professor Helen Ball is on the other side of [00:07:45] the earth in comparison to me in tiny little Hobart in Australia, and when she said yes, I was just so thrilled.

[00:07:54] Dr. Renee White: I cannot wait for you to get this in your ears for all of [00:08:00] those playing at home. Helen is a professor of anthropology and she's the director of the Durham Infancy and Sleep Center. She has pioneered, absolutely pioneered the [00:08:15] translation of academic research on infant sleep into evidence for use by parents and healthcare staff by what's called BASIS, so the Baby and Sleep Information [00:08:30] Source website.

[00:08:32] Dr. Renee White: Wholly moly. Strap in people, because this is the ultimate interview when it comes to infant sleep. We are gonna be talking about [00:08:45] the evidence-based research and we know that this is a highly contentious issue out there in the, in the world. We have infant feeding and infant sleep. It is, it's just those two.

[00:08:58] Dr. Renee White: They're like two Goliaths [00:09:00] and there's always, you know, lots of opinions. Helen is all about the research. Okay. And what she says is backed by the research. And so in today's interview we talk about, you know, how it all started, like how [00:09:15] she became curious about this field. And like many of us in science, it stems from personal experience.

[00:09:23] Dr. Renee White: So that's no surprise we dive into the historical context. [00:09:30] What was the origin of those rigid sleep schedules and formulated sleep plans that we always see. Very, very fascinating. We talk about the evidence around bed sharing. [00:09:45] We talk about, you know, the natural biological, physiological development of our children, and what is the actual, I guess, what are the realities, what's the expectations of our children [00:10:00] and how are they different to adult sleep, for example?

[00:10:04] Dr. Renee White: And we talk about, you know, why lots of people need to understand this probably before they have a baby. And I guess, you know, addressing those parental [00:10:15] expectations as well, when to seek help. Also, you know, I guess that practical implementation, if you're, if you are really struggling with newborn sleep, what are some of the things that you can [00:10:30] implement tonight to, I guess, you know, really start harmonizing the needs of your baby's biology?

[00:10:38] Dr. Renee White: It is a fascinating interview. Oh my goodness. I could have spoken to her for absolutely hours. I [00:10:45] cannot wait for you to listen to this. Please get your pen and paper ready. Absolutely amazing, amazing interview. He is Professor Helen Ball. [00:11:00] Hello and welcome to the podcast, professor Helen Ball. How are you today?

[00:11:04] Prof Helen Ball: Well, thank you. Good morning. From the uk

[00:11:09] Dr. Renee White: We were just saying offline, it's a bit weird. It's, uh, very dark here in Hobart and I have just had dinner with my [00:11:15] family, so, but you know, the beauty of technology, we can still have a good old chat about your amazing book and research here on the podcast. Helen, I always like to start with [00:11:30] a specific question when I'm talking to scientists.

[00:11:32] Dr. Renee White: Mm-hmm. And that is understanding how you got into this particular type of research. As a scientist, myself, I, I kind of look back [00:11:45] on, you know, what, was there a defining moment mm-hmm. Where you were like, actually, hold on a minute. I'm starting to become very curious about this field. Mm-hmm. And I guess, you know, was there a pivotal moment that made you realize that, [00:12:00] you know sleep, infant sleep is exactly the avenue you wanted to go down.

[00:12:06] Prof Helen Ball: Well, I don't suppose it's any surprise really, that most of us who get interested in any aspect of sort of infant care came to that [00:12:15] topic when they had their children. So, um, my experience was being a primatologist, having my first child in the states while I was looking for an academic job, [00:12:30] getting an academic job in the UK and moving here when she was a year old.

[00:12:35] Prof Helen Ball: And then realizing pretty quickly having a field, having a primatology field site in the Caribbean and being in the northeast of [00:12:45] England wasn't going to work with a, with a small child.

[00:12:49] Dr. Renee White: Yeah.

[00:12:49] Prof Helen Ball: So, you know, I went and did field work for, for one summer, the second, the first summer after we moved to Durham. And um, it was [00:13:00] just. I couldn't get excited about going and chasing around after monkeys on an island, even though the island was in the Caribbean when my husband and daughter were back in, you know, on the beach enjoying [00:13:15] themselves all summer. And I was missing all of that.

[00:13:17] Dr. Renee White: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:19] Prof Helen Ball: And so I came back to the UK and decided that I needed to find something that I could do using the skills that I'd, that I'd learned in my [00:13:30] PhD, in observation, et cetera, that I could do closer to home.

[00:13:34] Prof Helen Ball: And I'd obviously read plenty about infant sleep and mother sleep and, and things like that while I was, while I was going through it myself, and I [00:13:45] realized that there was a whole area of research at that time. What I was interested in was bed sharing, and there was a whole area of research around bed sharing that was just getting off the ground with Jim McKenna in the states.

[00:13:58] Prof Helen Ball: But nobody was [00:14:00] looking at it at all anywhere in Europe. And I thought, yeah, I can do that here in the uk. And I already knew lots of people with babies, et cetera. So that seemed like a, an easy place to start, and it just really spread from [00:14:15] there.

[00:14:16] Dr. Renee White: Mm, that's amazing. And I guess, did your, did your personal experience really kind of take a hold into your professional life as well?

[00:14:29] Dr. Renee White: Like [00:14:30] were you taking kind of your own experience as a mother into that? Or was it kind of, you know, chicken and the egg scenario?

[00:14:38] Prof Helen Ball: No, I think, I mean, I, I write about, I write in the book about my personal experiences a fair amount. And [00:14:45] one of the things that I had just discovered basically by trial and error, that bed sharing worked really well for us as, as a breastfeeding family who mm-hmm. Were living, you know, when our [00:15:00] daughter was born in a very small space where there wasn't room in our bedroom to have a cot next to the bed. Yeah. And so it seemed to me that getting up in the night and going down the corridor and picking her up and feeding her and coming back and going down again and, you know, that was [00:15:15] just gonna be really laborious.

[00:15:16] Prof Helen Ball: And why didn't we just keep her with us? And I remember asking a friend about it because, you know, it was one of those things that nobody really talked about. So you didn't know if other people did it. But as an anthropologist it made sense. It was sort [00:15:30] of an obvious solution. And she said, oh yes. And, and her son was about four at that point.

[00:15:35] Prof Helen Ball: He's always slept with us and he still does. And I just thought, okay, fine. That's what we are gonna do then if it works for somebody else, you know, it'll work for us. [00:15:45] But when I got to the UK and I said to colleagues, I think I'm gonna switch the field of research that I do and I'm interested in infant sleep.

[00:15:53] Prof Helen Ball: And they would say, what about infant sleep? Mm-hmm. I'd say, I'd say I'm, I'm interested in the, the mother baby bed [00:16:00] sharing part because it seems to me we don't know very much about it. We don't know how people make their decisions about it. We don't know how people do it. Uh, we dunno how they benefit from it.

[00:16:13] Prof Helen Ball: Everybody says you're gonna kill [00:16:15] your baby, but I think there's lots of people bed sharing and, you know, there aren't thousands of babies dying. So there's something, there's, there's more to it that we need to know. And one of my colleagues said, well, how are you gonna study that? [00:16:30] Nobody does it here. And I thought, that's exactly why I need to study it, because people just assume it's a behavior that doesn't happen in the uk.

[00:16:40] Prof Helen Ball: But I thought that it did. Yeah. And there was a lot of stigma around [00:16:45] it. People were afraid to talk about it for lots of reasons, not just because they thought they'd get told off that they were gonna kill their babies, but because it was sort of, I think it was sort of a associated with permissive parenting, and you were [00:17:00] somehow letting your child get away with something if you weren't forcing them to sleep in a cot by themselves all night. Um,

[00:17:07] Dr. Renee White: yes. that old, you know, you're gonna make the rod on your back. Mm-hmm.

[00:17:11] Prof Helen Ball: Yeah. Yeah. People were reluctant to sort of [00:17:15] discuss these things for fear of other people's opinions, and I felt there was a huge amount to be unpicked and unpacked there. So yeah, that was. It was as a result of my own experiences, but also the [00:17:30] reaction of other people that made me think, yeah, there's, there's, there's more to this than, than anybody understands.

[00:17:37] Dr. Renee White: Absolutely. We have a doula village here in Australia and we [00:17:45] provide, um, you know, some postpartum planning sessions before the baby arrives with families. And one of the fundamental things that we cover is co-sleeping. And you're so right, like, particularly with first time parents as well. Mm-hmm. Like we broach the subject and we say, [00:18:00] look, you know, people are gonna be tired, emotions are gonna be high, and in some circumstances, you know, maybe you could try co-sleeping.

[00:18:09] Dr. Renee White: It's a tool in the toolkit, as I call it. And I also broach it in the sense of like, [00:18:15] you may not think that you are going to do it, but a lot of people end up doing it. So let's have a conversation about how to do. Safely. Um, so you know, in advance what you're doing, your [00:18:30] research informed, was it the 2019 revision of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicines Protocol?

[00:18:36] Dr. Renee White: Is that correct?

[00:18:37] Prof Helen Ball: That's right.

[00:18:37] Dr. Renee White: On bed sharing and breastfeeding. Can you explain to the listeners the connection [00:18:45] between safe bed sharing and breastfeeding success, and I guess how parents can implement this safely?

[00:18:53] Prof Helen Ball: Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, if we start with the, sort of the statistics around the relationship between breastfeeding and bed [00:19:00] sharing, what we've found is that about 80% of breastfeeders regularly bed share with their babies, and the remainder will do it some of the time. It's, it's not a hugely common strategy to only keep your [00:19:15] baby in a, in a crib if you're breastfeeding. And that's just because. Breastfeeding? Well, it's, it's, there are multiple reasons, but one is that breastfeeding's soporific for both you and your baby. And so you're likely to fall asleep while you're feeding.

[00:19:29] Prof Helen Ball: [00:19:30] And the safest place to fall asleep while you're feeding is actually on a flat surface on your bed rather than on a couch or in an armchair, et cetera. It makes that nighttime kind of getting up and feeding and, and putting the baby [00:19:45] back a lot easier to deal with if you don't have to try and then wake yourself up and go, go and put the baby back somewhere else if you've planned ahead so that your bed is an already safe space if you fall asleep.

[00:19:57] Prof Helen Ball: And we found that that mums who [00:20:00] intentionally bed shared for that reason were more likely to carry on breastfeeding for longer because it made it less onerous that frequent night waking.

[00:20:10] Dr. Renee White: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:11] Prof Helen Ball: And then the third reason is that the babies [00:20:15] need to feed frequently during the night is also linked to the mother's milk supply.

[00:20:20] Prof Helen Ball: So the more frequently your baby feeds, especially in those early weeks mm-hmm. The more copious your milk production is, and the more quicker [00:20:30] that the, the more quickly it comes in. And you develop these things in your breast called prolactin receptors, the more of them you develop early on in breastfeeding because of frequent feeding, the easier it is for your body to sustain [00:20:45] milk production over the long term.

[00:20:47] Prof Helen Ball: So there's sort of multiple physiological and behavioral sort of reasons why bed sharing and breastfeeding end up being linked. And then in terms of sort of safety, one of the things that our research [00:21:00] showed around about the, the early, early noughties was the way in which breastfeeding mothers bed share with their babies was a very characteristics of pattern.

[00:21:13] Prof Helen Ball: So we videoed mums and [00:21:15] babies in their own homes. We had them come into our sleep lab and we videoed them there. And then we also did a couple of studies on the postnatal ward in the local maternity hospital looking at what happened when mothers and babies were [00:21:30] randomly allocated to bed share on the postnatal ward.

[00:21:33] Prof Helen Ball: And in every instance, the breastfeeding mums, regardless of whether they previously breastfed, and regardless of whether this was their first baby, and in the [00:21:45] postnatal ward, this was their first baby on their first night together, we just said, you've been allocated to bed sharing and let them get on with it.

[00:21:53] Prof Helen Ball: They all,

[00:21:54] Dr. Renee White: mm-hmm.

[00:21:55] Prof Helen Ball: Instinctively positioned their baby flat on the mattress, on their [00:22:00] backs. At the mother's breast height, the mother's curled up around the baby. And made this space for the baby to sleep in with their body, with their arm above the baby's head.

[00:22:10] Dr. Renee White: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:10] Prof Helen Ball: And their knees underneath the baby's feet. And the baby couldn't go anywhere. [00:22:15] And the mother was sort of oriented towards the baby, checking their breathing, checking their temperature, monitoring them all night. And it was just a very safe and easy position to breastfeed in because [00:22:30] babies basically just were rolled onto their side fed and then rolled back again.

[00:22:34] Prof Helen Ball: Mm-hmm. And we saw that so consistently amongst mothers who were breastfeeding that it seems to me to be a sort of, well, not a sort of, but an, an instinctive behavior [00:22:45] that, that breastfeeding

[00:22:46] Dr. Renee White: Yeah.

[00:22:46] Prof Helen Ball: Will do. And so that, you know, that ended up informing an awful lot of guidance around safe bed sharing and what safe bed sharing looks like to the extent that [00:23:00] here in the UK now, that image of the mother curled up around the baby.

[00:23:04] Prof Helen Ball: Is given to all parents as an illustration of what they should be aiming for in terms of safe bed sharing, whether they're breastfeeding or not, so that they [00:23:15] know mm-hmm. What to keep the baby off the pillows, to keep the baby flat on their back. All of that kind of stuff. Yeah.

[00:23:22] Dr. Renee White: That's, yeah. That's amazing. I, I always kind of recite this story with, I think, you know, I got the fear of [00:23:30] God put into me, you know, don't, don't bed share and, you know, danger, danger type of thing. And I remember my daughter was seven months old at the time, and she got croup and it was, as you were kind of saying, it's that [00:23:45] exhaustive mm-hmm.

[00:23:45] Dr. Renee White: Process of back and forward, back and forward, back and forward. And I just was so tired and depleted. Mm-hmm. And as you say, like this instinct of like, [00:24:00] she's not going to be, any further away from me than possible. Mm-hmm. And I brought her into my bed and we did, we did bed sharing for two weeks. And the, it didn't make sense to me [00:24:15] at the time, but I said to my husband, I said, I've never felt more rested than these last two weeks, which doesn't make sense to me because we've had a sick child.

[00:24:28] Dr. Renee White: Mm, mm-hmm. Like this. [00:24:30] And I was like, you know, like I was kind of like Russell Crow from Beautiful Mind trying to work out what was going on, what going on. And then I was like. And I was like, hold on a minute. This is a complete farce. She's never [00:24:45] going back in the cot or basinette. Like, this is just insane. You know?

[00:24:50] Dr. Renee White: And I, I was just like, okay, we are doing this now. Like mm-hmm. If this is how I'm to get rest. And she was happy, my husband was happy, like everyone was [00:25:00] happy. And I was like, oh my God. It was like we'd unlocked like this new achievement on parenting life. It was crazy. And I, I've recite that story to a lot of parents and I'm like, look, you've gotta be able to be [00:25:15] comfortable with it, but like, trust me on this.

[00:25:17] Dr. Renee White: Like I've, it, we had a sick child and I still say I've never been so rested.

[00:25:23] Prof Helen Ball: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah, I think I was, I don't think I realized at the time when I had my first daughter, how [00:25:30] lucky I was in having a friend who'd, bed shared and told me that, you know, it was an okay thing to do. And then when I left, yeah, the hospital with my daughter, my midwife, who was like a very unusual [00:25:45] midwife for the us we, you know, she, I, I just by, by accident, I think gave birth in a small cottage hospital in New England.

[00:25:53] Prof Helen Ball: I didn't make a choice. Mm-hmm. It was just the nearest hospital to where we were at the time. And, um, she [00:26:00] was, she was a very forward thinking, woman centered sort of midwife. And she had signs around her office going, no episiotomy and no enema and no shaving, and no, this, you know, she was stood for, you know, [00:26:15] um, not medicalizing childbirth in any way.

[00:26:18] Prof Helen Ball: And as we left the hospital, put her arm around my shoulder, I remember very vividly. And she went, and don't forget to take her to bed with you, my dear. And it was just like, you know, that validation and [00:26:30] reassurance that what I'd chosen to do was actually something she also recommended. I don't think, yeah.

[00:26:37] Prof Helen Ball: Yeah. I, I think that was just kind of like this very fortuitous set of circumstances mm-hmm. That came together. That meant [00:26:45] that my first experience of mothering, I didn't have that sort of exhaustion, sleep deprivation, getting up every, you know, couple of hours

[00:26:58] Dr. Renee White: mm-hmm.

[00:26:58] Prof Helen Ball: Because these things [00:27:00] coalesced to just encourage me to bring her into bed from the day we got home.

[00:27:05] Dr. Renee White: Yeah. That is absolute magic. And like you would know, I mean, it's all about normalizing the experience mm-hmm. For [00:27:15] mothers and, and we are so, we are so open to. You know, lots of information and I feel like, you know, there's not much of a filter going on as well, and so we absorb all of it. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:27:28] Dr. Renee White: Because we're trying to be the best [00:27:30] mum that we can. And so to have such positive reinforcement like that

[00:27:35] Prof Helen Ball: Yeah.

[00:27:36] Dr. Renee White: Is absolute gold. I'd love to know, because we hear about, and I was subjected to this [00:27:45] because I got told that my baby was broken. Mm-hmm. Because she was sleeping 40 minutes at a time and to be honest with you, it didn't bother me.

[00:27:54] Dr. Renee White: I thought everything was, you know, hunky dory. And I was like, yeah, this is just how it is. [00:28:00] And I went with it. And then someone said to me, speaking of, you know, outside influences, someone said, oh, no. You must put an end to that. You have to teach her how to sleep. She doesn't know how to do that. I'd [00:28:15] love to know as someone who has been in this industry for a very long time.

[00:28:20] Dr. Renee White: Where, where does this origin come from of like this rigidity of sleep schedules and formulated [00:28:30] sleep plans. Like where does this all come from? Because I now know in hindsight, because I've got a lot of clarity and I've, you know, spoken to experts like you and, you know, read your book and things like that.

[00:28:43] Dr. Renee White: How, [00:28:45] how the hell did we get so far away from biological reality Helen, like, can you please explain this to me? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because I'm looking at both ends of the spectrum going, how did we end up here? Yeah. What happened?

[00:28:57] Prof Helen Ball: Yeah. I think, I think [00:29:00] industrialization had a lot to do with it. The sort of, you know,

[00:29:04] Dr. Renee White: yeah.

[00:29:04] Prof Helen Ball: The economic sort of. Changes that happened in the mid to late 18 hundreds through the early 19 [00:29:15] hundreds, I think had huge influences on, on adults and on family life, and required adults to work in a way that they'd never [00:29:30] had to work before. The sort of the mills and the factories and the, you know, the 12 hour shifts and the regimented sort of clocking in and clocking out and, and all of that kind of stuff changed the way in which [00:29:45] people lived, the way in which people thought about time, the way in which people organized their lives.

[00:29:52] Dr. Renee White: Mm.

[00:29:52] Prof Helen Ball: People moved away from the places where their families had always lived to go to the cities to work in these [00:30:00] factories because they couldn't make money there.

[00:30:01] Dr. Renee White: Yeah.

[00:30:02] Prof Helen Ball: And then they had no support when they had babies. So those babies had to basically fit into this artificial sort of adult world [00:30:15] that wasn't ever designed to meet their needs.

[00:30:18] Prof Helen Ball: And the way in which the experts tried to explained parents how to make this all work involved [00:30:30] a lot of clock driven schedules for feeding, lots of emphasis on the baby sleeping for long periods of time. And you know, in that, in that era, babies were given Laudanum and all sorts of things to sort [00:30:45] of make them sleepy for most of the time.

[00:30:47] Prof Helen Ball: So they could be looked after by other people while mums were in the factories or whatever it was when, you know, the, the rise of artificial feeding came about because women couldn't breastfeed all the time and there were no [00:31:00] breast pumps at that, that period. So there was sort of a huge decline in, in bio biological motherhood, if you like. The sort of the things that we used to do as mothers prior to the mid 18 hundreds [00:31:15] all became practically impossible for women to do if they were, if they were working in a factory or a mill or something, or they were

[00:31:24] Dr. Renee White: mm-hmm.

[00:31:25] Prof Helen Ball: Or they were providing, you know, one of the service roles for all of the people who were working in [00:31:30] the factories and the mills and that, that sort of went on through the 1920s when the, what people call this, the era of scientific baby care sort of came into, its its height and people were [00:31:45] writing lots of guides for mothers, mostly middle class and upper class mothers.

[00:31:51] Dr. Renee White: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:51] Prof Helen Ball: But these principles, you know, began to be picked up by ordinary everyday people as well, but they didn't necessarily read as [00:32:00] much or as well, so most of these guides were written for the sort of the educated well off. And they were about creating the regimented, compliant child who was not going to cause their [00:32:15] parents any, any stress or, or, you know, disharmony in the family or whatever because children, you know

[00:32:24] Dr. Renee White: Yeah.

[00:32:24] Prof Helen Ball: The era of children should be seen and not heard. Mm-hmm. Babies shouldn't [00:32:30] manipulate you. You know, all of the kind of sayings that we have about babies crying is good for their lungs and, um, you know, he's not gonna die themed, put him in a room by himself. You know, all of this [00:32:45] stuff came about during that era and it's, it's really sort of become a pervasive, sort of cultural folk wisdom [00:33:00] about how you treat babies.

[00:33:01] Prof Helen Ball: Mm-hmm. Although it's not wise in any way, but it's become the sort of. It's become the underlying, fundamental way in which people think about babies, and it's so unhelpful.

[00:33:14] Dr. Renee White: Mm-hmm. [00:33:15] Yeah. Absolutely. And I think, I guess just tying that through, one of the things that we often get asked as doulas is, you know, how do I, how do I set my baby up [00:33:30] for sleep success?

[00:33:31] Dr. Renee White: You know, like, what are the things, what are the things that I should do? What are the things I shouldn't do? And you know, we have to be so careful with language around like mm-hmm. Bad habits. Yeah. Which [00:33:45] for, if anyone's listening, I just did big bunny ears for that. Like, you know, what are some of the things that you think I'm gonna say, you know, particularly first time parents.

[00:33:55] Dr. Renee White: Mm-hmm. And you know, maybe those who have experienced the sleep [00:34:00] industry of those strict schedules and realized, actually, you know what, that doesn't work for our family. What are some of the things that you would love for parents to know about, I guess, you know. Developing [00:34:15] healthy sleep wake cycles for their baby.

[00:34:17] Dr. Renee White: Unlike the really crap advice that I got, which was, your baby's broken and you need to fix her.

[00:34:23] Prof Helen Ball: Well, I think, I mean, one of the things that you mentioned a few minutes ago about having to teach your baby to sleep, I think is [00:34:30] one of the biggest myths that we can bust because what people are say, what people are understanding when they're told that is very different from what's actually happening.

[00:34:40] Prof Helen Ball: So, so babies know how to sleep. They're born [00:34:45] knowing how to sleep. They've been sleeping in the womb, you know, for for weeks and probably months. They know how to sleep. What we are, what people mean when they say you need to teach your baby to sleep is you need to [00:35:00] teach your baby to sleep in the way in which adults would like them to sleep, or that society thinks that they should sleep, which means yes, teaching them to sleep on schedule.

[00:35:12] Prof Helen Ball: Pretty much on [00:35:15] command and for lengthy periods.

[00:35:18] Dr. Renee White: Mm-hmm.

[00:35:18] Prof Helen Ball: And you know, fundamentally that second one to sleep on command for, for anybody to fall asleep when somebody else tells them or has decided that they [00:35:30] should, is impossible. You cannot fall asleep on command. You can only fall asleep when your sleep pressure is high enough.

[00:35:39] Prof Helen Ball: And so one of the things that tends to happen is in those schedules [00:35:45] and routines, if parents have set the schedule in such a way that it coincides with when their baby's sleep pressure is high and their baby is able to fall asleep easily at that time, [00:36:00] but they're supposed to, then it seems to work it, it appears to work.

[00:36:05] Prof Helen Ball: Mm-hmm. But if parents are trying to put their baby to bed at a time when the baby's sleep pressure isn't high, that baby is never gonna fall asleep [00:36:15] until it's had enough chance for its sleep pressure to increase. So what you end up doing is shushing and patting and rocking and what, you know, whatever strategy you try to use to make your baby go to sleep at the time that you've decided that [00:36:30] they should go to sleep, you're just passing time.

[00:36:33] Prof Helen Ball: Mm-hmm. While their sleep pressure increases. Yeah. And if they're getting frustrated, you know, if the baby is getting frustrated with, with these repeated attempts to make them go to sleep when they're not [00:36:45] sleepy, then they will, you know, get angry or frustrated and cry, et cetera, and then they're never going to sleep because the action of sleep pressure doesn't work when you're wound up.

[00:36:58] Prof Helen Ball: You have to be [00:37:00] calm mm-hmm. In order to be able to relax.

[00:37:02] Dr. Renee White: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:02] Prof Helen Ball: The sleep pressure to take over. So, you know, people, I would say if somebody is trying to get their child or their baby to go to sleep at a particular time and it, the baby [00:37:15] doesn't fall asleep within five or 10 minutes, give up. Do something different.

[00:37:20] Dr. Renee White: Yeah.

[00:37:20] Prof Helen Ball: Take them out. Mm-hmm. Play with them. Do something that's gonna, you know, engage their brain so that they build up a bit more sleep pressure and [00:37:30] try again in half an hour. Or, you know, wait until you, you think they're, they're sleepier. You know, this doesn't work for very new babies because very new babies can't sustain very long awake periods and they just fall asleep whenever they need to [00:37:45] all the time.

[00:37:46] Prof Helen Ball: But, you know, people are often trying to get their baby into that sort of routine by the time they're three or four months old and, uh mm-hmm. You know, their brains are getting bigger at that point, and they're able to sustain a bit longer [00:38:00] period of wakefulness. So I think it's, and that's changing all the time because as their brains grow, the period of time that they can stay awake for gets longer and longer.

[00:38:11] Prof Helen Ball: Um, so people get hung up with [00:38:15] these rigid schedules, which are unrealistic because their baby is always changing. So actually the schedule needs to constantly change. So in a way, the schedule is pointless because you need to just follow your baby's [00:38:30] development.

[00:38:31] Dr. Renee White: Um, absolutely. And also the fact that, you know, if I had a three month old and my next door neighbor had a three month old, it's not to say that they would have the same amount of sleep [00:38:45] pressure. Like it's, it's a moving kind of beast, isn't it there? Like you can't compare apples with apples as well. They're individual children, right?

[00:38:54] Prof Helen Ball: Mm-hmm. Yep. And you know, as adults we all have different amounts of time that we need to [00:39:00] sleep. And babies have different needs too. You know, if you look at some of those, so there's a, I've put in the book, because it's such an in illuminative graph from a systematic review that that was done by Barbara Gall from New Zealand about 10 years [00:39:15] ago now.

[00:39:16] Prof Helen Ball: And she looked at all of the studies that had measured the duration of baby sleep between kind of like birth and, and well, she went, I think she went up to about five years old, but I've sort of cut it [00:39:30] off at the end of, of, of a year or two years. And she plots the average for all of these studies. And then she plots the, the distribution around the average.

[00:39:40] Prof Helen Ball: And in the first six months or so, the averages of all the studies are all over [00:39:45] the place. Nevermind the individual babies in those studies. So, you know, the distributions go from some babies sleeping for as much as 22 hours in 24 and others sleeping for about eight or nine. And if you've got, you know, [00:40:00] a baby at one end of that distribution and your neighbor or sister's got a baby at the other end, you know, they're gonna be like chalk and cheese.

[00:40:06] Prof Helen Ball: There's absolutely no comparing them, um, in terms of their sleep needs, um, uh, when they're gonna need [00:40:15] to nap, you know, how long they're gonna be able to stay awake between sleep periods, you know, it's gonna be hugely different.

[00:40:24] Dr. Renee White: Mm, absolutely. Is there, is there ever a point [00:40:30] where there's like genuine sleep issues at all?

[00:40:35] Dr. Renee White: Or is it just, you know, you've just gotta tune in to your baby's needs because, you know, I kind of think about, I hear about [00:40:45] parents who, you know, they say, I've tried everything. We've been to sleep school, we've had a sleep consultant. I've tried co-sleeping, I've tried this, I've tried that. All, like, you know.

[00:40:56] Dr. Renee White: Mm-hmm. All the tools in the toolkit. Is there [00:41:00] anything, like, are there any things where you're like, okay, this is genuinely a sleep issue, or is it, or is it actually a fact of like something else is going on, which is influencing the sleep issue?

[00:41:13] Prof Helen Ball: It's usually that something [00:41:15] else is going on that's influencing the sleep in the first six months.

[00:41:19] Prof Helen Ball: It's often a feeding related issue. So it might be some kind of intolerance or you know, some, some. Something that is affecting the [00:41:30] baby's ability to feed and means that the baby has to keep waking and trying to feed, you know, frequently or that the baby's

[00:41:39] Dr. Renee White: mm-hmm.

[00:41:39] Prof Helen Ball: Feeling discomfort as a result of feeding, like some kind of allergy or, or what [00:41:45] intolerance or whatever.

[00:41:46] Prof Helen Ball: So in the first six months, baby's sleep is usually disrupted by feeding related things if it's disrupted at all. So I would say seeing somebody who's skilled in sort of breastfeeding support is important [00:42:00] at that point. Mm-hmm. In the second six months, it's usually if there's, if there's something disrupting the baby's sleep, it might be sleep apnea.

[00:42:10] Prof Helen Ball: That is the clinical sort of thing that happens in the second half of the [00:42:15] first year, which is when the child sort of has these pauses in their breathing and Mm. That causes them to wake up. So you can, you can hear, you know, if you listen to your child when they're sleeping, you can hear if they have apnea, you'll hear them [00:42:30] sort of stop breathing and then start stutter and start breathing again.

[00:42:34] Prof Helen Ball: And that can be fixed with various kind of clinical solutions, some of which is like removing adenoid sore, something like that. But, but there are [00:42:45] very few actual clinical sleep issues in the first year. Occasionally. Mm-hmm. Towards the end of the first year you might get night terrors, but they tend to be in the second and the third year.

[00:42:59] Prof Helen Ball: But I have come [00:43:00] across one or two, well, usually they're health practitioners who sort of come to me and say, I've got a mum and she, her baby's screaming and waking up and screaming in the middle of the night and she can't console them. And, and I'm like, that really sounds [00:43:15] like night terrors and you need to send her to a either gp.

[00:43:18] Dr. Renee White: Yeah.

[00:43:19] Prof Helen Ball: But you know, other than that. The children for whom parents really struggle with their sleep in babyhood tend to [00:43:30] have this as an issue throughout childhood. And it's often related to a later diagnosis of, of Neurodivergence A DHD or autism or you know, people will look back and go, oh, that [00:43:45] explains why they never slept.

[00:43:47] Prof Helen Ball: Um, but you can't use it as a sort of diagnostic criteria that, that that sleepless baby is actually showing the earliest signs of the autism or A DHD. They might be, but it's [00:44:00] too early for anybody to sort of really be able to clarify that that's going on.

[00:44:06] Dr. Renee White: That's interesting. I also, I fact check me, was there a paper, some research that yourself and [00:44:15] someone else did on swaddling?

[00:44:16] Prof Helen Ball: Yeah.

[00:44:18] Dr. Renee White: Yes.

[00:44:19] Prof Helen Ball: Yeah,

[00:44:20] Dr. Renee White: I'll, I'll, yes.

[00:44:21] Prof Helen Ball: We've written about swaddling

[00:44:22] Dr. Renee White: Oh my goodness. I have, I have a, I have a bit of a trauma story about that.

[00:44:27] Prof Helen Ball: Oh, no.

[00:44:27] Dr. Renee White: From like an experience in the hospital. [00:44:30] Uh, just, yeah. It was, it was a little bit like, you know, I, I, I took the route of, and I'm sure you've seen them, those like zip up mm-hmm kind of sleep suit. Yep. Things that kind of, your arms inside. Yeah. [00:44:45] Yeah. So my daughter was a Houdini and she had zero interest in being swaddled in the kind of, you know, muslin blanket cause she would just Shazam arms out. That's just, I knew that within 24 hours. Mm-hmm. So I was like, [00:45:00] okay, fine. And as every first time mum does, I had way too many things in my bag.

[00:45:05] Dr. Renee White: And I had one of those, I'm pretty sure you would have them in the uk, the, the love to dream suits where they've got the arms up. Oh yeah. So I put her in that. [00:45:15] I zipped her up in it and the midwife came in and she was furious, Helen, she was furious. Wow. Um, she was so cross with me and she was like, get that stupid thing off her.

[00:45:28] Dr. Renee White: And I was like, oh my [00:45:30] God, what is going on? Mm-hmm. And I, I felt like I had taken away part of her job because her job was to show me how to wrap my child. Like a burrito baby. Like a burrito we take. [00:45:45] I'd taken that role from her and yes, she made us take it off her and she was like, this is how you wrap a baby.

[00:45:55] Dr. Renee White: So I was like, okay. Um, needless to say, I put it back [00:46:00] on her, um, the next day. But anyways, I wasn't willing to have that fight at 3:00 AM Yeah. On the hospital ward. But I would love for you to let the listeners know about that research with the swaddling, because, you know, if we [00:46:15] talk about a, uh, you know, million squillion dollar industry when it comes to wrapping our babies.

[00:46:22] Dr. Renee White: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. What did you find?

[00:46:25] Prof Helen Ball: Well, interestingly, there's, there's quite a lot of research out there that [00:46:30] has looked at the effects of swaddling on babies in different ways. Um mm-hmm. And so we did two reviews. One was about baby's arousal and, uh, sleep patterns, and one was about breastfeeding and swaddling.

[00:46:44] Prof Helen Ball: [00:46:45] And in both cases it didn't seem to us from the evidence that swaddling was necessarily a good idea, uh, for most babies, certainly not for breastfed [00:47:00] babies. Because

[00:47:02] Dr. Renee White: why is that,

[00:47:03] Prof Helen Ball: that that tight burrito kind of swaddling, breastfed babies need to use their hands as, you know, to cue that they wanna feed. Um, and swaddling the, their [00:47:15] hands inside the swaddle really prevents that.

[00:47:17] Prof Helen Ball: It suppresses those cues. So they're more likely to go for longer periods between feeds, which is not a good idea for the baby, and it's not a good idea for the mum's milk supply [00:47:30] either.

[00:47:30] Dr. Renee White: Mm-hmm.

[00:47:30] Prof Helen Ball: When we had babies in our lab in swaddle, so we did a sort of, um, uh, a two night test once where with the same baby.

[00:47:39] Prof Helen Ball: So the same baby was swaddled for one night and un swaddled for the other night. And [00:47:45] on the night they were swaddled, they didn't interact with their mums anywhere near as frequently. They turned their heads away. And they slept more deeply. And that's was what we found in the other review was that babies who are swaddled have fewer [00:48:00] arousals now.

[00:48:00] Prof Helen Ball: That is what people are using the swaddle for. They're trying to make those babies sleep more deeply and sleep for longer. To conform with that sort of cultural view that the parent's [00:48:15] job is to get babies to sleep for lengthy periods and not disturb them as frequently. But actually, if you're doing that with a young baby in the first few months, that is increasing their chance of sudden infant death because [00:48:30] babies whose arousal is suppressed are the ones who are less likely to wake if there's some kind of adverse event happen.

[00:48:38] Prof Helen Ball: And you know all of the guidance that is given around SID'S [00:48:45] prevention is around keeping babies in those lighter stages of sleep that they can arouse from if they stop breathing for some reason. So that's why they're put on their backs. It's why they're breastfed. It's why they're, sometimes dummies are [00:49:00] recommended, why they're you're encouraged not to over wrap them so that they overheat all of those things being on their tummies, being formula fed, being too hot.

[00:49:10] Prof Helen Ball: They make babies sleep more deeply and they're all associated with an [00:49:15] increased chance of sudden, sudden infant death. So swaddling also is associated with that sort of pattern, although there aren't enough studies on swaddling and SIDS to know if there's this clear [00:49:30] link between SIDS and swaddling, there's that sort of, this smoking gun.

[00:49:33] Prof Helen Ball: I suppose that it, in that it suppresses arousal and therefore. You would expect that it would be linked with SIDS, but there've only been four studies that have looked at swaddling and sids, and two of them [00:49:45] found an association and two of them didn't. So the jury's out in terms of, uh, the epidemiology.

[00:49:51] Prof Helen Ball: Mm-hmm. But you know, it's one of those things that if, if for breastfeeding purposes and if, uh, sort of [00:50:00] infants, um, survival purposes, arousal is a good idea, then to me swaddling is the opposite of that. So I wouldn't do it.

[00:50:10] Dr. Renee White: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It kind of stands to reason, doesn't it?

[00:50:14] Prof Helen Ball: [00:50:15] Yeah. So it's

[00:50:15] Dr. Renee White: very interesting.

[00:50:17] Prof Helen Ball: It's, IM, I think it's important to understand what each of these interventions are doing to the baby, because then you can make an informed choice about whether you're willing [00:50:30] to do that to your baby for the perceived benefits that people think you will get from that. Yeah, it's the same swaddling, it's the same with bed sharing.

[00:50:39] Prof Helen Ball: You know, it's the same with how you feed your baby. You're making, you know, decisions to the best of your [00:50:45] ability on the information that you have available. But you know, a lot of the time, the information that we have available is only what other the parents say about how they feel about it, how it's affected them.

[00:50:57] Prof Helen Ball: And it's not about do you [00:51:00] understand what this might be doing to your baby? Um,

[00:51:03] Dr. Renee White: absolutely.

[00:51:03] Prof Helen Ball: So that's, you know, that's one of the reasons why, to me, understanding baby's sleep biology is so important and making sure that parents have some kind of understanding of baby's sleep biology. [00:51:15] Cause you can inadvertently be doing harm in all sorts of ways.

[00:51:20] Dr. Renee White: I've got one last question before we jump into our rapid fire. And I guess I always like to kind of finish up with a bit of a tangible, uh, [00:51:30] you know, question. For parents listening right now, you know, say they've got a newborn, they're struggling with, you know, sleep expectations. What's one thing that [00:51:45] they could implement tonight to start, I guess, harmonizing their needs with their baby's biology, as you say?

[00:51:52] Prof Helen Ball: Mm-hmm. I would encourage them to think about when they're [00:52:00] trying to get their baby to start the night and when they start the night. So if you kind of like have a desired bedtime for your baby. And, and here in the UK it's kind of like seven o'clock is the magic [00:52:15] hour. All children sort of the pumpkins at seven o'clock for some reason they must be, yeah,

[00:52:20] Dr. Renee White: don't understand this 7:00 PM thing

[00:52:22] Prof Helen Ball: start this, you know, start this with in the newborn period. And it, it absolutely makes no sense to me. [00:52:30] Um, so, you know, but if you've got a baby and you're putting them to bed at seven o'clock, the chances are by before you, you go to bed, they're gonna be awake again and need feeding again. Yep. So [00:52:45] I, and, and one of the things that tends to happen over the course of the first three months is that ba as babies start to sort of consolidate their sleep a bit more in the night and a bit less in the day, they're beginning to get a bit of a circadian rhythm.

[00:52:59] Prof Helen Ball: [00:53:00] Um, the first sleep of the night is usually their longest sleep. So I would say keep your baby with you wherever you are during the evening and put your baby to bed at the [00:53:15] same time you go to bed. And that's, you know, that's basically what bed sharers do anyway because they just kind of like take their baby to bed with them when they go.

[00:53:24] Prof Helen Ball: But a lot of people put their baby upstairs in a cot. That's a not a good idea because you're not [00:53:30] supposed to leave your baby by themselves because of sudden infant death. But also your baby's having their longest sleep in the evening while you are watching tv. And then it's ready to kind of like start that regular night waking as soon as you go to bed.[00:53:45]

[00:53:45] Prof Helen Ball: So it would, it makes more logical sense to have your baby go to bed when you go to bed so that you can take advantage of their longest bit of sleep. To get your deepest sleep because the, when we [00:54:00] fall asleep, we fall asleep into deep sleep quickly and then we spend a few, couple of sleep cycles in deep sleep before we start having dreaming sleep and spending more time in lighter sleep.

[00:54:13] Prof Helen Ball: So if you are woken by mm-hmm. You [00:54:15] know, if your baby's already had their longest sleep and then they're waking every couple of hours to feed, they're gonna be waking you up in the middle of deep sleep and that is really disruptive. Yeah. That is really hard to cope with [00:54:30] being woken out of deep sleep.

[00:54:31] Prof Helen Ball: Mm-hmm. But if you've managed to get, you know, three or four hours of deep sleep in before they wake up from their longest sleep, it's much easier to cope with that then more frequent feeding [00:54:45] when you are just going through your REM sleep and you're later stage of sleep because it's not as big a wrench to wake up.

[00:54:52] Prof Helen Ball: So I would encourage people to think about how they can harmonize their longest, their deepest sleep [00:55:00] with their baby's longest sleep. In order to avoid that sort of awful, having to wake up out of deep sleep in order to feed a hungry baby. Yeah,

[00:55:10] Dr. Renee White: that's great advice.

[00:55:11] Prof Helen Ball: That's a lot strategy. Yeah. It might work for [00:55:15] you.

[00:55:15] Dr. Renee White: Amazing. Thank you for that. Um, alright, we're gonna dive into our rapid fire, which we ask all of our guests. Okay. Are you ready? What is your top tip for mums

[00:55:27] Prof Helen Ball: to work out before you have your [00:55:30] baby, who your helpers are gonna be, and prepare them for the fact that you're gonna ask them for help and prepare them for the fact that the help that you're gonna ask for is not to come and hold the baby, but to do everything else, to give [00:55:45] you the time and to sort of, you know, have that bonding and feeding and establishing your relationship time.

[00:55:52] Prof Helen Ball: And have them come and do the dishes or the laundry or vacuum the floor or walk the dog or play with the toddler or whatever it else [00:56:00] it is that you need doing. But yeah, to sort out who your helpers are and prepare them for what they need to be doing, I

[00:56:06] Dr. Renee White: love that. And for those playing at home, I did not pay Helen to do that. It's something we preach on here all the time. I've got like [00:56:15] dedicated episodes to that and I'm just like,

[00:56:17] Prof Helen Ball: it's what I always say. Yeah, you need helpers. I, I sort it out early.

[00:56:22] Dr. Renee White: Mm, get comfortable with asking for help. Mm-hmm. Love that. Do you have like a go-to resource? Obviously your [00:56:30] book will become one of those go-to resources.

[00:56:32] Prof Helen Ball: Yeah. Well, my,

[00:56:32] Dr. Renee White: but do you,

[00:56:33] Prof Helen Ball: my book is the go-to resource on sleep, obviously.

[00:56:36] Dr. Renee White: Yeah. But do you have, do you have any others that you know for, you know, soon to be mums or new mums and, you know, [00:56:45] some guests have even like said a poem or a quote or a workshop or anything, like, is there anything that you would kind of, I, I guess, you know, gift to another mum to help them out?

[00:56:58] Prof Helen Ball: Well, this might be a bit of [00:57:00] blatant self-promotion as well, but I would, I would send them the, uh, web address for the baby sleep information source. Yep. Because that was, that was our first attempt to get this information about baby [00:57:15] sleep biology and, and anthropology out to the public was mm-hmm was that website, which still exists.

[00:57:22] Prof Helen Ball: It's still got all that stuff on it. Um, we keep adding to it and I guess, I guess the book was born of that really. [00:57:30] But I, yeah. I would send them to the, to the website to go and read about what normal infant sleep is all about before they have their baby.

[00:57:37] Dr. Renee White: Amazing. Last question, and we borrow this one from the lovely Brene Brown. What do you [00:57:45] keep on your bedside table?

[00:57:46] Prof Helen Ball: One of the things that I keep on my, my bedside table is a teddy bear that I was given as a child that became my sort of attachment object throughout childhood. Yeah. So there are [00:58:00] photos of me from sort of being a toddler to probably being about 10 or 11, always with this teddy bear.

[00:58:10] Prof Helen Ball: And that this, it was savaged by one of our dogs once, so [00:58:15] he's sort of a bit better than ripped now. I sewed him back together, wrapped him in a baby blanket, and he lives on my bedside table now. Oh, I've never lost my attachment to this bear. He goes with me when I travel. [00:58:30] He's in the suitcase. He keeps my safe.

[00:58:32] Dr. Renee White: Oh my goodness, Helen. That's so beautiful.

[00:58:34] Prof Helen Ball: They're my safety blanket.

[00:58:36] Dr. Renee White: Does he have a name?

[00:58:38] Prof Helen Ball: He's called. Well, he has no, when I was little, he was just called Teddy, but as we got older, [00:58:45] as as he, he by, by the time my kids were born, I'd loved this teddy bear so much. He'd pretty much lost all his fur.

[00:58:52] Dr. Renee White: Yeah.

[00:58:52] Prof Helen Ball: So we now refer to him as Bare Bear.

[00:58:56] Dr. Renee White: Oh, that's great. I [00:59:00] love that. Oh my goodness. Well, we've never had a guest say that they've still got their teddy bear, so you are definitely one of a kind with that. We have, you know, we've got the usual like book [00:59:15] dust, you know, glass of water type thing.

[00:59:17] Prof Helen Ball: I have all of those things too, but I figured Bare Bear was probably a bit more unusual.

[00:59:21] Dr. Renee White: Bare Bear is fantastic. I love it. Look, Helen, it has been so fascinating to chat with you. Congratulations on [00:59:30] this book. It is absolutely amazing and I love the fact that we are getting more and more resources out to the public about the whys behind. Mm-hmm. The physiology and the [00:59:45] biology of our children.

[00:59:46] Dr. Renee White: Because, you know, I think I've demonstrated to you, I'm a scientist, I am a good researcher, but I was still clouded by this whole sleep regime. Mm-hmm. And broken baby like narrative. [01:00:00] Um, and I think it's people like you who are doing amazing work and being able to kind of disseminate that knowledge to everyone else.

[01:00:07] Dr. Renee White: So thank you so much for all the work that you've put in. Thank you. For these many, many years and your research team and all [01:00:15] collaborators and everything, where can we find your book? How can we get in touch? Where, where do you live? Are you like just on the website or social media?

[01:00:26] Prof Helen Ball: Yeah, so our social media are a link to the Baby Sleep [01:00:30] Information Source. So the acronym for that is Basis. So if you look for basis on Facebook or Instagram, we're on, I'm on Blue Sky, I've, we killed our Twitter account, so we're not on there anymore. And the book is called How Babies Sleep in [01:00:45] the uk it's published by Penguin Random House in the us. It's published by Balance books, which are part of Hachette and you can find it, well, you can certainly find it online at both of their, on both of their websites.

[01:00:58] Prof Helen Ball: And there are links [01:01:00] to other places you can buy it like the, uh the usual suspects, the online book sellers, I guess in Australia, if you wanna buy it from a, from a physical bookshop, they might have to order it in, but you can,

[01:01:11] Dr. Renee White: you can get it on Kindle. I got my copy on Kindle.

[01:01:14] Prof Helen Ball: [01:01:15] Yeah, as well. You can get in the audio book version.

[01:01:17] Prof Helen Ball: I read the audio book. Did you? You can hear me. You can hear me reading my own book. Yes.

[01:01:25] Dr. Renee White: That, I mean, I've spoken to other authors who've done that. That is an absolute [01:01:30] feat to kind of read your book out. Like I just,

[01:01:33] Prof Helen Ball: it was very daunting when they said, why don't you, cause I was going, why don't we get some celebrity to read it?

[01:01:39] Prof Helen Ball: And they're like, we can't.

[01:01:40] Dr. Renee White: Who would you pick?

[01:01:41] Prof Helen Ball: Celebrity. Why don't you read it?

[01:01:43] Dr. Renee White: Who would you pick, Helen? Who would you [01:01:45] love to read your audiobook if you made a choice?

[01:01:46] Prof Helen Ball: Well, my daughter is a big fan of Giovanna Fletcher, and so she wanted me to get Giovanna Fletcher to read it. I dunno if you're familiar with her in Australia.

[01:01:54] Dr. Renee White: No, I don't. Who is that?

[01:01:57] Prof Helen Ball: She has a very, she has a very well known sort [01:02:00] of podcast and, and influencer sort of Instagram called Happy Ba Happy mommy, happy baby. Something like that. But she's the wife gonna of, she's the wife of a pop star. She's the wife of one of the [01:02:15]

[01:02:15] Dr. Renee White: Tom Fletcher,

[01:02:17] Prof Helen Ball: Tom Fletcher yes. What's, is he in busted, I don, or is he in the other one?

[01:02:21] Prof Helen Ball: The other one?

[01:02:21] Dr. Renee White: I'm looking it up up now. Giovanna Fletcher. I'm assuming she's from the uk, is that right?

[01:02:28] Prof Helen Ball: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[01:02:29] Dr. Renee White: Okay. [01:02:30] Maybe that's what I don't, I don't dunno, I don't watch a lot of TV either, so.

[01:02:36] Prof Helen Ball: Yeah. But she's pretty much, she's a, she's a media personality over here.

[01:02:40] Dr. Renee White: Oh, so that's who, okay.

[01:02:42] Prof Helen Ball: That's who I suggested based on my [01:02:45] daughter's recommendation.

[01:02:46] Prof Helen Ball: They said, no, you can read it. Which I was very daunted by. I thought it was gonna take like weeks to read it. And the producer, the, the audio book producer got in touch and she's like, we'll schedule in three days. And I'm like, [01:03:00] three days we're gonna read it in three days.

[01:03:02] Dr. Renee White: Goodness.

[01:03:03] Prof Helen Ball: But you did. We did. We just, you know, I sat in the little booth with the headphones on and the, and the iPad in front of me and I just read and read and read and she goes, do that again.

[01:03:14] Prof Helen Ball: And I did that [01:03:15] again. And I read and I read and yeah, we got through about three or four chapters a day and we got it done in three days. Amazing.

[01:03:22] Dr. Renee White: Wow. And then did you go on like a bit of a silence camp after that for your voice? [01:03:30]

[01:03:30] Prof Helen Ball: Yeah, I think I did my, did my quotient of talking for nearly a year, I think during,

[01:03:38] Dr. Renee White: I love it. Well, you know what, I think audio books are amazing, particularly for mamas, [01:03:45] breastfeeding mamas as well. We are sitting up, you know, in the middle of the night. We just pop those headphones in and we can keep doing all the things that we are doing whilst listening to amazing books. So I am really glad that you did that.

[01:03:58] Dr. Renee White: Sorry that you didn't get your [01:04:00] celebrity person, but I'm sure everyone still enjoy listening to you. Helen, it's been an absolute blast to have you on the podcast. Thank you again for accommodating me such early morning in the uk. And yes, as I said, thank you so [01:04:15] much for all the research that you do. It is absolutely amazing, absolutely amazing. Thank you.

[01:04:21] Prof Helen Ball: Thank you. Thank you for sharing it with people because there's no point in it sitting, you know. In dusty, dusty academic journals and nobody ever knowing [01:04:30] about it. So yeah, we need people like you to kind of let people know that it exists.

[01:04:35] Dr. Renee White: Oh, my pleasure. Um, alright everyone, until next week, we will see you. Bye.

[01:04:42] Dr. Renee White: If you loved this episode, please [01:04:45] hit the subscribe button and leave a review. If you know someone out there who would also love to listen to this episode, please hit the share button so they can benefit from it as well. You've just listened to another [01:05:00] episode of The Science of Motherhood proudly presented by Fill Your Cup, Australia's first doula village.

[01:05:07] Dr. Renee White: Head to our website, I fill your cup.com to learn more about our birth and postpartum doula offerings, where every [01:05:15] mother we pledge to be the steady hand that guides you back to yourself, ensuring you feel nurtured, informed, and empowered, so you can fully embrace the joy of motherhood with confidence.

[01:05:26] Dr. Renee White: Until next time, bye.