HOW BABIES’ BRAIN DEVELOPMENT IS SHAPED BY TOUCH
For newborns, skin-to-skin contact with parents and caregivers helps shape how their brains respond to touch, a sense necessary for social and emotional connections. A lot of previous research has linked skin-to-skin touch with developmental benefits for both premature and full-term babies, ranging from improved growth and sleep to better motor development. Research has also […]
RESEARCH FINDS (AGAIN!) INFANTS SENSITIVE TO PLEASANT TOUCH
Cognitive neuroscientist Merle Fairhurst and colleagues of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, knew that previous studies with adults show that a specific type of touch receptor is activated in response to a particular stroking velocity, leading to the sensation of “pleasant” touch. They hypothesized that this type […]
BABIES DEPENDENT ON OPIOIDS NEED TOUCH, NOT TECH
A physician in Kansas has worked for years to tackle infant mortality. She often treats newborns in a high-tech Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) with intricate things whirring and beeping. That, she says, is not the place for a baby like Lili. Lili’s mom, Victoria, used heroin for the first two trimesters of her pregnancy, […]
INFANT MASSAGE: STRESS AND RELAXATION
Infant massage is one tool we have to help reshape our child’s interpretations of the world, to release her pain, grief, and fear, and to open her up to love and joy. Touch meets a baby’s needs for physical contact, affection, security, stimulation, and movement. Skin-to-skin contact is especially effective, such as during breastfeeding, bathing, […]
WHO SHOULD MASSAGE THE BABY, and WHY?
When I first began teaching Infant Massage in 1977, I brought my baby to classes and demonstrated the strokes on him. This worked out very well, and I continued when my second baby came along. It was nice because they then received massage twice a day! Then I began training Infant Massage Instructors for what […]
A PRESCRIPTION FOR TOUCH: EARLY EXPERIENCES SHAPE PRETERM BABIES’ BRAINS
Newborn babies experience the world through touch. Now, researchers who have measured the brain responses of 125 infants—including babies who were born prematurely and others who went full-term—show that a baby’s earliest experiences of touch have lasting effects on the way their young brains respond to gentle touch when they go home. The findings reported […]
STUDY SHOWS BABIES WHO GET MORE CUDDLES HAVE THEIR GENETICS CHANGED FOR YEARS
The amount of close and comforting contact that young infants get doesn’t just keep them warm, snug, and loved. A new study says it can actually affect babies at the molecular level, and the effects can last for years. Based on the study, babies who get less physical contact and are more distressed at a […]
WHY SKIN-TO-SKIN CONTACT WITH INFANTS IS BETTER FOR EVERYONE
Carmela Torres was 18 when she became pregnant for the first time. It was 1987 and she and her now-husband, Pablo Hernandez, were two idealistic young Colombians born in the coastal region of Montería who moved to the capital, Bogotá, in search of freedom and a better life. When Torres told her father she was […]
CAN BABIES BE SPOILED WITH LOVE AND ATTENTION?
Research can help us understand why traditional practices are so important. Knowing why, we are less quick to cast adrift customs that can deeply enrich our lives. Nearly every new parent hears the admonition, “Don’t spoil the baby!” at one time or another in the early months of parenting. Our concern about raising “spoiled” […]
SOUND EXPOSURE FOR PREMATURE BABIES IN NICUs
Premature babies often spend the first several weeks of life in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), where, ideally, they are protected from too much noise stimulation. However, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that preemies may be exposed to noise levels higher than those deemed safe by the American […]