Is there an age where skin-to-skin contact and other interactions lose some of their importance for early development?
In certain countries, skin-to-skin contact is standard care for babies, and the babies will determine when they have had enough because theywill start to have an interest in other things.
Much has been made of children from orphanages, who might have missed out on a lot of the personalized physical and emotional engagement during their infancy. Does this really have long-term effects?
There's been some interesting work done with children who have been adopted from Romania, where there wasn't a lot of individual attention. In Romania, at least initially after the country opened up [in 1989], there were few adults to many children, and they were also separated by age, so the children weren't interacting with one another as much. After they were adopted into Canadian homes, the longer they had been in the orphanage, the more likely they were to have longer-term deficits. But even if they had been in orphanages for a long time, going into a family environment was beneficial. Most of the kids ended up being okay. Some took longer than others to be okay, and some had long-term deficits.
What are some of the long-term deficits that are common in some of these children?
There are some cognitive deficits initially, and there are some emotional differences. Some have found that children from Romania have indiscriminant friendliness—they're more likely to go off with strangers. It's almost as if they think "all adults are wonderful," and they don't have the sense "there are particular adults that are mine."
What can or should be done for children who are coming from an environment where they might not have gotten much physical touching or emotional engagement?
The main thing would be to give them what they didn't get.
What else should we know about the role of infant engagement in development?
It's not that anything is cut in stone. I don't want to give the impression that if babies don't get this they're marked for life. This early understanding of self and early understanding of other is developed through interaction. It teaches babies basic lessons that they have some agency in the world, so that allows them to explore the world and feel like they can affect their environment as opposed to just being helpless to whatever happens to them. We're basically a social species, and we learn those things through interacting with others.
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Add CommentHow is "skin to skin" defined? Due to chilly rooms and such, my son was in full body cotton sleepers pretty much right from the beginning. My husband and I held him constantly for the first 6 weeks or so, but always with lots of intervening fabric. He's 5 months old now, and seems perfectly well adjusted, but I'm wondering if this article is looking at literal skin to skin.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt would seem that the evolutionary benefit of the bonding process is to impart a deep caring for the child to the mother. Without successful bonding, it is the child's well being that is jeopardized by an inattentive mother. Long term, many the effects of maternal neglect must be impossible to overcome, as the effects of early development of the child cannot be undone or redone.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTouch is an essential macro nutrient.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen there is a lack of physical contact with another human being, we tend to get sick and depressed.
With no touchting at all, we shrivel up and eventually die.
Just try this: stroke or hold the hand of a lonely elderly person living in a nursing home, and see their whole being lighten up!
How ironic - you have an article about the importance of skin-to-skin and on the same page folks are subjected to advertising from a formula company (that talks about the science of it of all things!!) Please check out the World Health Organization Code Against the Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes. Both the US and Canada are signatories. Formula feeding has been one of the main reason that skin-to-skin is not practiced anymore! In fact in some instances infants are not even held to be fed but have the bottle propped! Our governments spend millions of dollars trying to counter the pressures from formula companies to buy their products. Please reconsider from whom you take money for ads and what the consequences are.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is heartbreaking to come across a child who was not given the physical and emotional attention they needed when young. Hold your babies!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn respons to NancyN's comment about formula companies. . . At four months my daughter decided she was done with breastfeeding. She nearly knawed my nipples clean off and then just refused to nurse period. I pumped for a few months afterward but dealt with recurrent mastitis and an allergic reaction to medication that almost killed me. NancyN - sometimes formula is a lifesaver! literally!
Nancy: I read (skimmed for pertinent information) the Code you mentioned, and had a good look at the Enfamil website. Have you honestly done either? Because I honestly fail to see your point.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a practising physician I had the opportunity of realizing that babies, that most often cry very loud when you try some physical examination on them, such as hearing lung or heart noises with an sthetoscope, become calmed almost instantly if you put the palm of your hand gently on the baby's chest
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNancyN - Well, I've always presumed that mother's milk would be generally most beneficial, but I know exceptions do occur.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLooking at that ad and the persuasive bonding display methods employed by that baby, I can only wonder how women can stand to be constantly assaulted by manipulative advertising directed at your deeply embedded maternal instincts, I presume being controlled by hormonal responses in the brain? Or, are women even conscious of these manipulative efforts? I can't seem to comprehend...
Wonderfully clear and sober answers!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvery human knows that physical touch is very important!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI like the article but am disappointed that Harry Harlow's studies in the 1950's is not mentioned. His work was pivotal in changing how we thought about touch.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhenever a baby sucks on the mother's nipple the mother produces the hormone oxytocin. If a mother puts her newborn to the nipple about six to twelve times a day the mother is getting lots of doses of oxytocin whereas the bottle feeding mother is deprived of this hormonal aid to help her care for her baby. Elsie Mobbs PhD(Syd) PO Box 36 Westmead 2145 NSW Australia
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was diagnosed with low litium levels a month ago. I was emotionally abused as a child and my mom did'nt allow anyone to touch me when I was a baby, she only touched me when I had a bath and when she changed my nappy. I have a feeling that my mental state and low litium is because of that, what do you think? I really want to do research on this. I am 40 years old and have been struggling all my life with depression.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI read an article once that described the infanthood of the unibomber (can't remember his name -- Ted something). His brother said that he was put in isolation for many months when he was a baby because of an illness. His mother wasn't even able to hold him. That could account for his antisocial behavior.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI remember an article I read about the unibomber (can't remember his name -- Ted something). His brother said that when he was a baby he was put in isolation for many months because of an illness. His mother wasn't even able to hold him. That could account for his antisocial behavior.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDidn't mean to submit that twice!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisContact is important. But I believe they can be well adjusted with or without.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am a mother of 3 breast fed babies who are adults now, and doing well with children of their own; however we have adopted a female cousin who is now 14. We got her at 8 mos. but even then she was very delayed, and spent another 2 years being taken back and forth to birth mother for "family reunification" thus says Social Services. After much emotional struggle to bond and terrible anger issues I finally researched RAD, reactive attachment disorder, and there she was; descibed and explained to me, exactly as we were experiencing this child. She was so neglected that the left side of her head was flattened, and she was in the DEC developmental program through Social Services at 8 mos. My 3 were teens at the time and did much to help her 'catch up', and definately loved her. We are now in the Intensive Family Therapy program though S.S. It seems to be helping. If I had not found the research on RAD kids sadly she may have been in a 24/7 home for toubled children by now. There is an amazing difference in the ability to connect, love, and trust in a child who was secure in the first months, and one who learned a whole different set of responses from their first encounter with this environment. We pray and will always press towards the heart of this childs reality to bring her into our love.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi have 2 brothers and a sister and one of my brothers are 1 and he loves when i play with him!!!!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyou are sooo rude!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi think to have a baby you need to have physical touch and you need to know how to do that for more info call...312-2213
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisare u sure about that? call me 312-2213 and well discus your issues!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyour wierd you dont know what your talking about!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSkin-to-skin is as it the name suggests. You can put a layer of fabric over the baby, like a blanket over both mom and baby. The baby is just in diapers. Mom's skin will warm or cool to help the baby stay at just the right temperature. In fact, a baby bathed in a hospital will warm up faster on mother's chest than in a warmer! It's the perfect place for a newborn/young baby to spend lots of time - help with thermoregulation, smell of mom, feel and hear heart beat (which helps with regulation). Even if it's not skin-to-skin, it's still wonderful for your baby to be held lots. But one doesn't need to worry that they'll get too cold.
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