Good advice for mothers Imam Jafar Sadiq (as) Reference: The Great Muslim Scientist and Philosopher, Jafar As-Sadiq

Babies should sleep on left side Imam Sadiq (as) has advised mothers that they should put their new born babies to sleep on their left side. This is another proof that he was a genius. For centuries, people did not understand this advice and thought it was absurd and meaningless. Some people even said that it was dangerous for babies to sleep on left side as mothers might accidentally take a turn and crush the babies.

Scholars did not accept Imam’s theory Someone asked this question to Mohammad Idris Shafi (who founded the shafi fiqh). Shafi said: “There is no difference between the right and left side. A mother can put her baby to sleep on any side she likes.” No one in the east or west took Imam Sadiq’s advice seriously. Even during the Renaissance period, when scholars in Europe studied every theory critically, no one tried to find out whether Imam Sadiq’s theory had a scientific basis.

Early research on Imam’s theory In 1865, Ezra Cornell, founded Cornell University. In the University an Institute for research on new born babies was set up under the Department of medicine. In early 20th century scholars in the institute studied pictures of 466 babies and they noticed that in 373 pictures mothers were holding their babies in the left arms. Scholars then travelled to different countries and different continents and observed that everywhere the majority of women carried babes in left arms. When scholars asked the mothers why they carried babies in the left arms no one could give a satisfactory reply.

Experiments to test the theory Doctors then conducted experiments and found that babies who slept on the left side had a sound and peaceful sleep but babies who slept on the right side had a tendency to wake up and cry. Experts then studied the behaviour of unborn babies in the wombs of mothers using holography technology and it was then that they found that babies were able to hear their mothers heartbeat in the womb.

Experiments to test the theory contd. Experiments found that whenever mothers’ heartbeat stopped beating, the babies in the womb became restless. The reason is that babies feed on the blood which comes to them with every heartbeat. Thus the existence of unborn babies depended on their mother’s heartbeat and they felt secure when they could constantly hear the heartbeat. They depend so much on the heartbeat that even after they are born they become restless if they don’t hear it. This is why new born babies who sleep on the left side have a more comfortable sleep.

Experiments to test the theory contd. To further confirm the results, experiments were done whereby babies were segregated into two different rooms. In one room there was the sound of artificial heartbeat and in the other room there was no sound. It was found that babies in the ‘heartbeat room’ slept more peacefully while the babies in the other room kept crying. Also if the heartbeat was lowered much below 72 times per minute or increased to 120 per minute babies became agitated as this was an alarm of danger for them.

Theory finally proved It was also found that babies in the ‘heartbeat room’ had a keen appetite for food and gained weight. But the other babies did not eat much and were not so healthy. If Cornell University had not carried out this research, no one would have realised the scientific importance of Imam Sadiq’s theory. It took man thousands of years to prove what our Imam had said 1400 years ago.