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Regine Schön

This poster discusses an age-old approach to infant care still commonly practiced in many non-Western countries and recently rediscovered in industrialized societies as a possible alternative to mainstream Western parenting. The caregiving style in question is known by names such as natural parenting, attachment parenting, and instinctive parenting. It is a form of child-centered care that is characterized by extensive infant carrying on the caregiver's body, bed sharing of parents and infant at night, and extended breastfeeding on demand. The described practices prevailed during the evolutionary history of the human species and reflect the natural, innate rearing style of the human species to which the human infant has biologically adapted over the course of evolution. Data will be presented on the everyday parenting practices of Western representatives of natural parenting during the child's first year of life, starting right from birth. For instance, detailed statistics on typical feeding practices, sleeping arrangements, and the daily amounts of physical contact as experienced by the child throughout the whole year will be shown. Comparison data on conventionally parenting families will also be presented. In addition, the effects of natural parenting on infant behavior and development and parental well-being will be explored.

Regine Schön is a psychologist with a special interest in natural living and a natural approach to infant care. She grew up in Austria, and has lived and studied in Finland, Great Britain, the United States, and Canada. At present, she is living in Finland and is working at the Department of Psychology and the Department of Applied Sciences of Education of the University of Helsinki. She is currently coordinating a research project on child-centred day care, and is preparing a doctoral dissertation in psychology on the subject of natural, child-centred infant care.

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