The Power of Touch for Babies: How Touches Benefit Your Baby
It is an incredibly special moment when your baby is finally born and placed in your arms. The beginning of a time filled with love and joy for both parents and children.
The gentle skin-to-skin contact that occurs at that moment not only encourages a strong bond between your baby and you but also has many benefits for your baby’s future health and development.
There are 5 ways in which touch is important for you and your child and some helpful ways of doing it.
1. A Calming Effect
A gentle touch can instantly calm your baby down, help him to relax, and reduce his crying. Babies who have grown up in a relatively snug environment for nine months enjoy being held, cuddled, or rocked. The physical contact will also help to reduce stress in mums, allowing them to relax, become more open to recognizing their baby’s signals, and allow the bonding to begin right away.
2. Feeling Secure
Touch plays a huge role in helping your baby feel secure and safe. When you connect with your baby and respond to her cues by recognizing them, your child will develop a secure connection. This attachment can have a huge impact on their life later, such as being able to form fulfilling relationships and feeling confident. Physical contact, such as cuddling and touching, can help your baby feel safe and secure. It also helps her develop and grow.
3. Get to Know You
Massage can be a great way to build a connection with your child and to spend time together. It is also calming to both mother and baby. After bathing your baby, rub a soothing and gentle massage oil on their skin. Cetaphil Baby Massage Oil is a good choice. This gentle, quiet massage will calm and relax your baby. It will also nourish her skin, and help to lock in moisture.
4. Brain Development
Studies reveal that physical contact between parents and their newborns is important for healthy brain development. Slow caressing and touch have been shown to improve the brain’s abilities to maintain a healthy self-image and develop a sense of ownership of the body. Other research shows that early touch encourages the brain of your baby to respond to affection. This is important for future development. This process is aided by cuddling, stroking, and gently caressing your child. She will feel relaxed and comfortable in a nurturing, safe environment.
5. Sleeping is Good
Babies can find it difficult to adjust to a new environment, feel relaxed, and be ready to sleep. Your baby will feel calmer and more relaxed if you hold, cuddle, and snuggle her. Prepare a warm, lovely bath. Gently wash your baby using Cetaphil Moisturising Bath and Wash. It’s perfect for newborns. With a third of lotion and soothing Aloe vera, this product will gently cleanse their skin, and help them relax before they slip into bed.
Your baby’s touch is vital!
It is the most natural thing for a new mother to touch her baby. Feeling the baby’s soft skin and counting their tiny fingers and toes is a natural gesture. This is a natural and positive feeling. After giving birth, you’re told to touch your baby with your skin. Your partner is also encouraged to do this as much as possible. It is important that your baby feels your breath and can feel your heart. This helps parents and babies bond.
You may want to attend a baby yoga or massage class as your baby grows. Both classes will help you and your baby to bond more. These classes also teach your baby how to distinguish between ‘the same’ and a ‘different’ feeling, which helps them develop their fifth sense. Massage can help calm down your baby and be incorporated into a routine before bedtime. It is a relaxing, gentle way to prepare them for sleep. Touch is important not just for babies, but also for children of any age. Touch your child by hugging them or holding their hand. It will help your child feel loved and secure.
You can help your baby feel sensations on the skin of their body by placing them on their stomach for a few minutes before bathing (remember last week when I spoke about ‘Tummy time?). Gently stroke the back, arms, and leg of your baby with your hands. You can pat them all over gently or use your fingertips to tap on them.
Use something velvety and soft to enhance your baby’s sense of touch. This can be done with a piece of corduroy or a comforter.
As your baby begins to reach out and touch, she will notice the difference in the texture of the mother’s skin as compared to the father’s. A father’s may be rougher or hairier, while a mother’s is much softer. Faces will become a fascination for your baby. When they see a familiar face, your baby may smile or gurgle.
This game will help your baby get ready for when you have to leave them for work or other outings. This game prepares your baby for the time you will have to leave him or her for work, other outings, etc. By showing your baby that they can’t see you right now, but that you will be returning, you help them understand that you are coming back. This helps to calm your baby down and distracts them from missing their mummy or daddie.
What to do with your baby in issue 5 of the month 5:
- Imitate your baby’s sounds.
- Introduce your baby’s voice to family and friends to help them learn to recognize it.
- Give your baby lots of things to mouth.
- Make sure your home is safe for children to explore.
- Check your baby’s hearing.
- After bathing your baby, give them a gentle massage!
In Issue 5 of the Growing Child Programme, you can read more about these topics. This was a very interesting and enjoyable article. I hope you found it to be so. No matter how much you know about your baby, you can still learn new things. Next week Mary will look at travel tips. Take care until then and be safe.
Power Of Touch
Love is a Loving Touch.
Regularly held and touched babies gain more weight, have stronger immune systems, learn to crawl and walk faster, sleep better, and cry less. Children who receive a lot of physical affection display more task-oriented behavior, less solitary playing, and less aggression in school. In later life, they also attain higher educational qualifications.
Touch Deprivation
Numerous studies (e.g. Bowlby, 1995, 1999; Fridlund et al. 2012; Meaney et al. (2013) have shown that children who are deprived of contact with their parents become isolated, lonely, and difficult. About one out of ten infants suffer from neglect, and about a third of all clinic referrals concern emotional disturbances, hyperactivity, and aggressive behavior, as well as conduct disorder in children who have not received positive touch during early infancy. (NSPCC 2017). In older children, physical symptoms like eating disorders, excessive hugging of the arms and legs, or subdued behavior may be present. Early detection is important.
Some parents avoid intimate contact with their baby in a world of sexual abuse. Early Years Practitioners also face a dilemma over whether to hug or cuddle their children, hold their hand, or pick them up when they fall. Their physical affections could be misinterpreted. Early Years Foundation Stage Framework (GOV.UK 2017) addressed this issue by stating that practitioners shouldn’t be afraid to cuddle or touch children at an ‘appropriate level’ or give them physical comfort. Some pre-schools, primary schools, and other institutions have introduced touch therapy as a part of their good care practices, in recognition of the benefits that touch has for learning, growth, and health.
Research
Harry Harlow’s work in the 1950s and Margaret Mead’s in the 1970s established the importance of early touch deprivation for healthy development later in life. Harlow, for example, provided evidence that feeding was less important to young rhesus macaques than physical contact. Harlow put the monkeys into cages with two replacement mothers. The wire monkey provided milk, while the cloth one was covered with soft fabric. Even though the cloth monkey did not provide milk, they spent most of their day clinging to her for comfort. When deprived of comfort, monkeys become indifferent or aggressive as adults. They also have difficulty mating and raising their children. Margaret Mead also brought to light the importance of touch. In societies that withheld physical affection from their infants, adult violence rates were significantly higher than in cultures where children received plenty of stimulation through touch in the early years. Children who were touched more often had better motor and intellectual development and were less fussy.
James W. Prescott, a health scientist at the University of California San Francisco, believed that physical contact is essential to brain development. Early deprivation of sensory stimulation can lead to neurological dysfunction, which in turn leads to autistic behavior and an increased risk for alcohol and drug abuse as adults. These are acts to compensate for the loss or lack of sensory stimulation in childhood. Prescott’s research also showed that parents who abuse their children are invariably denied physical affection as a child.
Researchers (e.g. Skuse, 1984; Rutter et al. 1998, 2001; Feldman et al. 2014) found that children and babies raised in orphanages in the 1920s without physical contact suffered from stunted growth, and abnormal levels of cortisol (the stress hormone). The chances of those who survived reaching puberty were less than 50%. Infants who were left in cots had brains that were 20 percent smaller than those who had been picked up and cuddled, despite having adequate nutrition and hygiene.
Touch is a Sense of Touch.
Touch is the first sense that develops in utero. In just 3 weeks after conception, a fetus’ primitive nervous system develops. It links skin receptors with tube-like cells near the tip of embryonic development. These cells then grow and mature into the spinal cord and brain cells. The fetus is sensitive to touch at all body parts by the 16th week. Around the 25th week of pregnancy, nearly all of the nerve pathways that carry pain signals have been established. The sense of touch becomes highly developed at full term. It’s no wonder that it is so important in the formation of the bond between parent and baby.
As we age, touch is the last sense to diminish. The elderly need touch just as much as when they were younger. They may feel isolated, lonely, and unfulfilled without it. Touch stimulation is essential for communication, healthy brain functioning, and hormonal balance in the body as well as physical and emotional well-being. Being loved is also a part of it.
Brain Development
Studies (e.g. McEwen & Gianaros, 2011; Meaney et al. In 2013, it was shown that serotonin – one of the brain neurotransmitter chemicals – is reduced significantly in children who have been denied touch in their early years. Serotonin levels are associated not only with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome but also with aggressive behavior, depression, and suicidal thoughts in later life.
