Causes of hyperventilation
Factors for infants
Before the baby is born, the fetus gets all its blood supply from the mother through the umbilical cord. This includes CO2 and O2. Because of this, the breathing of the fetus depends solely on the mother’s breathing and when she hyperventilates, her unborn baby also hyperventilates.
Birth itself is a severe shock for the baby. Probably, the central part of this shock is a drastic drop (about 30%) in blood CO2 concentrations. The process of delivery and new environmental conditions cause stress and make their breathing heavy. In order to make the transition more gradual, all primitive and recent cultures used swaddling (or tight wrapping) of babies. When meeting people born and raised on different continents, I was reassured that swaddling was the norm in Africa, America, Europe and Asia. In Asia, due to hot climate, they used, instead of clothes, wooden sticks, which were applied along the trunk and tightly tied using ropes. In Scotland, swaddling blankets were passed from generation to generation. Swaddling prevents unduly deep chest breathing and restricts their total ventilation. In other words, they breathe less. Modern western civilization and our health care systems have gradually lost this wise cultural tradition.
"But the cells of animals and humans need about 7 % CO2 and only 2% O2 in the surrounding environment. This is the way our cells live: cells of the heart, brain, and kidneys. But now air has 10 times more oxygen and 250 less carbon dioxide, i.e., it is not suitable for our cells and is poisonous in its composition. This is confirmed by embryology. During recent years detailed studies of gas blood exchange in embryos of humans and animals were done. It was found that during 9 months we live in an environment, which has 3-4 times less oxygen and 1.5 times more CO2 (both as partial pressures) in comparison with adults. Obviously, the organism of the mother creates such conditions for the embryo, as they were billions of years ago. This supports the Law of Gekkel-Severtsev: the embryon, in its development, repeats the filogeneses.
After birth, during the first breaths, there is a sudden increase in blood oxygenation and a sudden drop in CO2. It is known that the child is virtually disease-free in the womb of the mother. Only after the birth, do diateses and all other abnormalities of metabolism appear. Why? There is a sudden change in air. The wisdom of East surprises us: the just-born infant is tightly swaddled, and in some places even tightened to a wooden plate. The chest is covered by layers of heavy material [voilok]. Our grandmothers covered the cradle with the infant using material covering [leaving a small hole for air exchange], and used swaddling too… Folk wisdom understood, that this air, so poisonous for the newborn, requires gradual adaptation." Dr. Buteyko lecture in the Moscow State University on 9 December 1969"
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