Bonding With Your Baby

Have you seen a baby being fed with its bottle propped? Do you think we don’t hold our babies enough? What effect does this have on our young? One reader recently wrote in asking these very questions.

We know that touch and subsequent bonding is essential to the wellbeing and development of the child. James W. Prescott, PhD, an American developmental psychologist, proposed that the origins of violence in society were related to the lack of mother child bonding. He said "The easiest and quickest way to induce depression and alienation in an infant or child is not to touch it, hold it, or carry it on your body." Harry Harlow also did extensive studies looking at the relationship between affection and development. His most famous study was of Rhesus monkeys, between 1963 and 1968. He placed the monkeys into two groups. The first group was offered a choice between two mothers, a terrycloth mother without food and a wire mother that provided a baby bottle containing milk. The second group also had a choice between two mothers, a terrycloth mother that provided food and a wire mother with no food. Interestingly the researchers found that the monkeys clung to the terry cloth mothers regardless of whether she had food or not. The only times the monkeys went to the wire mother was when she had food. The terrycloth mother provided something more important than food: contact comfort. Harlow concluded that affection and emotional connection is integral to mother child relationships. He later went on to do studies that showed the complete psychological deterioration of monkeys who were kept in social isolation.

Unfortunately we see this in real life when we observe babies who prior to adoption are kept at orphanages with a high caregiver to child ratio. The child never has the opportunity to bond with another person and therefore develops disorders of attachment. This disorder significantly impairs their ability to relate to other human beings for the rest of their lives!

The good news is that we can continue to bond and increase our well-being by touching and being touched! Oxytocin is a hormone secreted by the posterior pituitary gland mainly in response to touch. Most people know of this hormone as a female hormone because it increases dramatically in labor and breastfeeding. But both men and women secrete oxytocin. It is known to lower blood pressure and other stress related responses and it has been called the calm and connection hormone. So remember to hug your baby or hug your pet or get a massage! All this will increase your oxytocin and help with calmness. Hug your older child too! Even teenagers need to know their parents are there and care for them. And please don’t bottle prop! If your life is so busy that you can’t hold your baby while you feed them you just might be too busy!


Dr. Sheila Cason