Good advice for mothers

1
Good advice for mothers

• Imam Jafar Sadiq (as)
• Reference The Great Muslim Scientist and
  Philosopher,
• Jafar As-Sadiq

2
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.

3
Scholars did not accept Imams 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 Sadiqs
  advice seriously.
• Even during the Renaissance period, when scholars
  in Europe studied every theory critically, no one
  tried to find out whether Imam Sadiqs theory had
  a scientific basis.

4
Early research on Imams 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.

5
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.

6
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 mothers 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
  dont hear it.
• This is why new born babies who sleep on the left
  side have a more comfortable sleep.

7
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.

8
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 Sadiqs theory.
• It took man thousands of years to prove what our
  Imam had said 1400 years ago.