A cure for crying babies?

Parents will be very interested in this (as will the makers of Calpol!).

A new book due out shortly offers a way to calm crying, restless babies and give frazzled mums and dads a bit of relief too.

Apart from human faces, the thing newborn babies like to look at most is high contrast black and white images.

According to a feature in the Guardian today, experiments show that :

“Anything with very obvious contrast – such as black and white edges and lines – is an optimal stimulant for the visual system… This type of stimulation basically gets the system up and running.”

A maternity nurse isa quoted as saying that in 10 years looking after many babies, she believes the simple black and white image soothes them. “I have had children who have been fractious or had colic and found myself thinking ‘You poor thing, I don’t know what else to do, I’ll give you this to look at.’ And it does seem to work’.

Interesting stuff. Maybe the parents out there already knew this and/or have their own magic solution?

The book goes on sale on 2nd October and a portion of the book price goes to the NSPCC in the UK.