swaddling

nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,947 of 15,258neutral

Swaddling is cloth wrapped tightly round a newborn baby. Swaddling clothes, wrap in swaddling, the practice of swaddling.

It calms a very young baby by limiting the startle reflex, and it has gone in and out of medical favour for centuries. Current advice is that the hips must stay free to move and that swaddling must stop once a baby can roll.

Definitions of swaddling

1nounswaddlingCloth wrapped tightly round a newborn baby.C1
“The nurse wrapped the newborn in soft swaddling so only his tiny face showed.”

swaddling is a wrapping.

Where it comes from

From swaddle, from Middle English swathelen, to bind with a band, related to swathe.

Middle English
swaþelynge
English, today
swaddling

From Middle English swaþelynge; equivalent to swaddle + -ing.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

swaddling in the wild

Seven children kneel, in black gowns, and the others are in swaddling clothes of red and lying in a heap behind their mother.
Sandford Orcas
However, another study indicated that swaddling increased the risk of SIDS.
Swaddling
Rhea, the wife of Cronus, gave him the rock, covered with swaddling clothes, to eat, because Cronus had eaten all of her children.
Agia Dynati
Risk factors for hip dysplasia include female sex, family history, certain swaddling practices, and breech presentation whether an infant is delivered vaginally or by cesarean section.
Hip dysplasia
Selling his cow and plough, he buys some swaddling cloth and travels from town to town.
Menahem ben Hezekiah

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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