Can you imagine what it would be like to be immobilized at bedtime? It seems quite complicated ... Look that there are traditions that are hard to understand, and more if they apply irresponsibly with the little ones that could have sequels. The "tegmat" is the bandage that is traditionally applied to Moroccan babies at bedtime, turning them into small mummies immobilized between the bandages.
As you can guess, just seeing the picture, this practice has detrimental effects on the nervous system or blood circulation, not counting the psychological effect of noticing immobilized and not receiving stimuli from your own body. It would be enough to squeeze the “wrapper” a little more than is due to prevent proper circulation.
Popularly denominated "Tegmat", the bandage, which is applied to babies during the first months of life, usually at bedtime, and that leaves them completely immobilized, is for many Moroccans a mandatory ritual. As many women once thought, it helped children grow up without bowed legs and with a slender figure.
As we see in the image, the head is left free, and inside are the arms crossed (the right over the left in the prayer position) and the legs stretched. Then the child is covered with a square cloth fastened with a bandage formerly made by grandmothers or in specialized tailoring.
Supposedly Being “mummified” the baby relives the intrauterine sensation and fall asleep, as advocates of this practice, popular for decades in Morocco.
But nothing has to do with the "floating" state between the amniotic fluid, the warmth and sounds of mom's body, and the "somersaults" and kicks that the baby gives in the womb, the shrinking position that offers security, with this posture rigid tegmat.
This practice can even produce hip dislocations by keeping the baby in a horizontal position. But the "Tegmat", explain the experts, especially It is pernicious at the psychological level because it limits the expressions, the senses, and the involuntary reflexes of the child.
Immobilize the baby, not just to sleep
Tegmat was and is also used to protect the child from the cold, avoid scratches on your own face or to transport it easily while mothers work in the fields or at home. In addition there are many who believe that the bandage is an excellent remedy against colic thanks to the heat and pressure that the fabric exerts on the belly.
Used in the 50s in a systematic way, in the 60s and 70s in urban areas women begin to distance themselves from this use when they consider it unnecessary, and given the constant warnings by specialists of its negative effect.
While in the cities the "Tegmat" disappears, in the rural world it still enjoys many adherents, and they are especially the "Kablas", traditional midwives who transmit the trade from mother to daughter, without specialized training but with a great reputation in the rural areas, the ones that drive it.
And although the “mummy bandage” has always had its detractors, especially in cities, today many women are no longer in favor of applying it to their babies. The problem that exists in Morocco is that they find it very difficult to impose themselves on the will of their families.
Fortunately, the tegmat or bandage for the baby to sleep better It gradually disappears in Morocco as women modernize, have more access to information, move away from family rites and are aware of the harmful effect of this use. The pending subject: the rural environment, where illiteracy prevails.
