Imagine that a Nordic woman with her baby comes to visit you on a cold winter day. It is such a cold day, so much so that outside the thermometer marks zero degrees and you have decided not to leave your house with your baby because of the risk of taking something you do not have. You just ate and as your son is sleepy and has fallen asleep to his chest, he leaves it in the stroller. At that moment he approaches your balcony and asks you for permission to open it. Surprised you access. He opens it, takes out the stroller, enters and closes it again.
Surely at that time you are thinking that this mother is "crazy up", however, if the visitor to the Nordic country was you, the rare would be you, not offering your child the best to avoid diseases: take it out to freezing temperatures to take a nap there.
I have never been to a Nordic country, so if you are from there or have seen it, you can verify it. Reportedly, it is common to see several strollers lined up at the entrance of coffee shops with children sleeping, while parents hang out inside. Similarly, in daycare centers they also take the children out during nap time and, evidently, the parents in their homes do the same.
The temperatures at which they can be vary, depending on the day, but it is usual that they are at temperatures between -5ºC and -15ºC. It is then that they "shelter" the stroller a little more, to avoid the wind, or put a little more care in sheltering the child, which is already very well covered (in that they could surely give us a few lessons).
This is not new
It is not a current trend, since it has been going on for decades and, as I say, there is the most normal thing in the world. Soon, soon after birth, they begin to spend time outside abroad, becoming up to two and three hours when they are older babies.
The time, logically, is marked by the baby, because when he wakes up he returns to the interior (although some nurseries propose their activities mostly abroad, the exception being those carried out in the classroom). As they say when babies sleep outside they sleep longer than when they are inside, being a possible explanation that they are very "collected", warm and physically contained, without getting to sweat.
Healthier than if they slept inside
The reason for doing something like this is that they are clear that in winter diseases are lurking. As the best way to get a child to get something is to put it in a closed and hot place with a lot of children or people who can infect you have the theory that outdoors the chances of getting sick are much lower.
Of course, the ideal would be to know how true this is. According to some studies carried out by the Environmental Protection Agency in Sweden, this theory is not entirely clear. Some studies show that children who spend more time outdoors, both in naps and in general, are absent from school less days than children who spend most of their time in the internship. In other studies, however, no differences are observed when comparing children who sleep inside and those who sleep outside.
Obviously, they put a lot of emphasis on getting the child, even if he was outside, not to be cold. As they usually say, "There is no bad weather, but bad clothes". A baby of weeks or months does not have the same temperature regulation capacity as adults, so if we did the same and did not shelter our children well we would run the risk of putting your health at risk.
Since they are well sheltered there is nothing that we fear most (that they "take what they don't have", that they "catch a pneumonia" or any of the things that our parents warned us when we were going out with a cold of Aúpa) , so since it’s less cold here and we rarely reach temperatures below zero, we could do the same and start taking babies to sleep outside. Thus we would avoid the closed places near children and adults that so many diseases spread to our children.
However, I don't know why, I doubt that this preventive technique will end up spreading in our population.
