Baby swingin’ yoga!

I saw this news article scroll across my Internet the other day and just had to double-take and ask myself (in Internet speak), WTF?  Apparently, there’s a lady in Russia by the name of Lena Fokina who is swinging babies around by their arms and legs because she believes that it’s healthy for them. The technique is called the Charkovsky method and though it seems to go against all common sense, several people are swearing by it.

Before we go any further, you must first check out this video of the baby yoga:

Controversial Baby Dynamics Yoga

Needless to say, there are many people who are getting upset about this video and others like it.  Yet Fokina still keeps doing it and people are still willing to let her do it to their children.  She has been doing it for 30 years, in fact, and claims that it helps the babies, improving the bonding between child and mother, and helping with motor skills and muscle development.  She also says that the babies who undergo this radical process end up being early readers and talkers.

Each session lasts about five minutes and can be performed on children ranging from just a few weeks to a few years old.  The end results for the babies are a bunch of crying and vomiting, go figure, but Fokina still insists that they get used to it and it’s more beneficial in the long run.

The level of controversy surrounding the practice has become such that many websites are actually banning the video, fearful that it will encourage child abuse.  People who watch the video may feel compelled to try it themselves with horribly bad results. The main concern is shaken baby syndrome (SBS), which can lead to serious and permanent damage in a child.

Of course, not everyone thinks this is the case.  Fokina gets a little good press in the following Russian article and if you want to hear what she herself has to say about it, there’s an interview in which she goes into more detail about the odd practice.

The question is, of course, whether she’s a crazy person or not.  Is there some merit to what she’s doing?  There’s a reason that people continue to take their infants to Fokina for her treatment, although it may be a reason similar to the type that people use to justify their involvement in cults…

Rena Fokina photo courtesy of oddculture.com

Video courtesy of barcroftmedia via YouTube