Dr. James McKenna
7 p.m. May 9
Eberly Hall, Room 110
Cal U welcomes Dr. James McKenna, a leading authority on mother-infant co-sleeping, for a lecture at 7 p.m. May 9 in Eberly Hall, Room 110.
His lecture is titled “Scientific Studies of the Evolution of Human Mother-Infant Attachment: Implications for the Health and Well Being of Mothers and Babies in Urban Industrialized Settings.”
McKenna is the director of the Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame, where he is also the Edmund P. Joyce Chair in Anthropology.
He is a world-renowned expert on infant sleep — in particular the practice of bed sharing or “co-sleeping,” especially in relation to breast-feeding. McKenna is known for conducting the first physiological and behavioral studies of the differences between solitary and co-sleeping mother-infant pairs.
The author of Sleeping With Baby: A Parent’s Guide to Co-sleeping, McKenna is a proponent of the practice who focuses his research specifically on the relationships between sleeping arrangements, feeding method and risk factors for sudden infant death syndrome.
The lecture is free, and the public may attend.