== Origin and history ==

Mothers have swaddled their babies throughout history.

Archaeological records suggest that swaddling first developed around 4000 B.C. in Central Asia with use of the back-pack cradle board by migrating peoples. As desertification progressed, migration from region to region became a relatively permanent way of life. Swaddling subsequently became an institutionalized part of child-rearing tradition in those same areas.DeMeo,James Ph.D., Saharasia: The 4000 BCE Origins of Child Abuse, Sex-Repression, Warfare and Social Violence, In the Deserts of the Old World, 2006 Revised Second Edition

Votive statuettes have been found in the tombs of Ancient Greek and Roman women who died in childbirth, displaying babies in swaddling clothes. In shrines dedicated to Amphiaraus, models representing babies wrapped in swaddling clothes have been excavated. Apparently, these were frequently given as thank-offerings by anxious mothers when their infants had recovered from sickness. C.J.S. Thompson M.B.E. curator, Greco-roman votive offerings for health in the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, London: Hazell, Watson and Viney

Probably the most famous record of swaddling is found in the New Testament concerning the birth of Jesus:

The oriental swaddling clothes consisted of a square of cloth and two or more bandages. The child was laid on the cloth diagonally and the corners are folded over the feet and body and under the head, the bandages then being tied so as to hold the cloth in position. This device formed the clothing of the child until it is about a year old, and its omission (Ezekiel 16:4) would be a token that the child had been abandoned....