Confessions of a Baby Who Wasn't Held

Physical touch is extremely important, but it's never been easy for me. I've always been fiercely independent in nature, even as an infant. My mother tells me that I cried and squirmed whenever someone tried to hold me. As a result, I wasn't held. I think my parents found it easier not to try. Even as I grew up physical touch was never a priority in our home. We kissed our parents goodnight and goodbye and hugged occasionally, but we always kept to our own space most of the time. I wonder why I was that way. Even now I'm somewhat of an ice princess, and physical touch doesn't come naturally to me. I wonder if my parents had made a stronger effort to hold me, if they could have nurtured me to be different than I am now? I'm not angry with them for doing what they did. They did what they felt was best, and I am who I am.

As a mother I'm learning the importance of touch for babies and children. My oldest is a bit of an ice prince himself, and I think it has a lot to do with his birth experience and having picked up some of my own mannerisms. As a baby he desperately wanted to be held, and wouldn't sleep unless he was being cuddled. So he's not exactly like me, at least not according to what I've been told, because he didn't start out that way. As an older child he loves it when I hug him and sit with him, but he doesn't ask for it or approach me. He waits until I approach him, which isn't often because I'm always busy. It seems like I'm always holding one of the younger two, and the older kids don't get much “mommy time” as we call it in our house. I have to make a conscious effort to snuggle my children, but I'm learning that it's incredibly rewarding.

With five children, I've never had a baby that didn't want to be cuddled. Sometimes I loved it, and other times it was really hard. Do we sometimes misinterpret our babies' signals? Could it be that I really wanted to be held as a baby, but for some reason my parents didn't know how to give me the touch I so desperately needed? I was born only 17 months after my older brother, and I wonder how overwhelmed they felt? Indeed, as an adult I'm finding that I crave physical touch, but I don't know how to go about it. I'm too proud/embarrassed/uncomfortable to ask, and almost afraid to approach even those close to me. Was I unconsciously trained as an infant that it wasn't OK to want it?

Many studies have been done and found the benefits of skin to skin touch for newborns and babies. Breastfeeding itself is an expression of nurturing physical touch, producing oxytocin, the “love hormone” and creating a stronger bond between mother and child. The need for touch doesn't end as a child grows.

It's easy with kids. They respond so well to hugs and cuddles. I'm learning to love it. I can't believe I've been missing out on this most of my life, but it's still a struggle at times. I've always had a sort of invisible bubble around me, and it's uncomfortable when someone invades that bubble. Children constantly invade my bubble, and it's taken time and understanding to literally embrace them and feel OK about allowing them to cross it at will. The more children I've had and the more I've matured, the more comfortable I've become with this, and I'm still learning to appreciate it.

I'm married to a cuddler. My husband thrives on touch, and this has created quite the dynamic in our relationship. Although this makes things difficult at times, when he wants touch and I want nothing to do with it, in some ways I'm grateful for it. He teaches me the things I didn't learn as a child. He's helping me realize the importance of touch, and as a result it's blessing our children. I don't think I would have learned how to appreciate the clinging of my loving babies without his reminders and encouragement. I'm amazed and grateful I was naturally inclined to breastfeed and co-sleep my babies, because those things have helped me as well.

I think some people naturally want to be held and others don't, but I think it's important for us all.

Parents, cuddle your babies. Hold them as much as they need you to. It's OK to stop whatever you're doing and switch your attention to your child when he or she needs you. It's OK to put other things on hold while you snuggle a little one and share that tender moment, or many moments as it may be. They won't be little forever, not more than a few years, and eventually they will likely outgrow the spontaneous invasion of your bubble and you'll miss it.

I truly hope my babies will grow to be healthy touch-loving people, unafraid to embrace and express their love in such tender ways.

Touch in Birth

This is a great resource for partners, doulas, midwives, and birth supporters everywhere.

I've been supported in birth by my husband (as licensed massage therapist), a doula, and midwives.  All of them used physical touch in supporting me, and I can personally attest to the great comfort and importance of touch in labor and birth.

I found this video through Enjoy Birth

Mother's Love and Touch Saves Her Tiny Baby

As published on Growing Your Baby

An Australian mom who was told her baby had passed is speaking out about how she brought him back to life by cuddling him skin to skin.

When Jamie and Emily Ogg arrived on March 25 at 27 weeks gestation doctors gave little Jamie no chance of survival even though he weighed just over 2 lbs.

His twin sister Emily had survived but Jamie was declared dead by the doctor who delivered him after 20 minutes battling to get him to breathe.

He was handed to his mother Kate so she and her partner David could grieve and say her goodbyes.

The new mom placed him on her chest and after two hours of being spoken to, touched cuddled and held by his mum he began showing signs of life.

Kate spoke about the night to an Australian talk show... saying,

‘He wasn’t moving at all and we just started talking to him. We told him what his name was and that he had a sister.

‘We told him the things we wanted to do with him throughout his life.’

Jamie occasionally gasped for air, which doctors said was a reflex action.

She added: ‘After just five minutes I felt him move as if he were startled, then he started gasping more and more regularly.

‘I thought, “Oh my God, what’s going on?” A short time later he opened his eyes. It was a miracle.

‘I told my mum, who was there, that he was still alive. Then he held out his hand and grabbed my finger.

‘He opened his eyes and moved his head from side to side.’

‘I gave Jamie some breast milk on my finger, he took it and started regular breathing.

‘At that point the doctor came back. He got a stethoscope, listened to Jamie’s chest and just kept shaking his head.

‘He said, “I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it”.’

Kangaroo care, which is what the mom did, is one of the most significant ways to bond with a premature baby.  The warmth of the moms body paired with the soothing sounds of her heartbeat have been know to reduce anxiety, regulate breathing and help babies grow faster.  In this case Kate’s body acted link an incubator to keep the baby warm, which stabilized his heart rate and helped him to breathe.

Now the tiny baby is home from the hospital and doing well. The doctor who looked after the baby refused to be interviewed by the TV show.

Mom and baby Jamie appeared on Australian television show, Today Tonight.

Here's another publication of the story on Mail Online.

Photo Update: 20 ounce baby saved by skin-to-skin contact

Remember the 20 ounce baby whose life was saved by skin-to-skin contact with her mother?

Here's an updated photo of mom and baby girl

High Tech vs High Touch

I found a really great post at the Midwife Next Door: "Thank you for touching me": the conflict between high-tech and high touch care.

I didn't realize that many prenatal care providers don't use touch anymore in the care they give to expecting women. Most care providers these days use ultrasound to check for fetal heart tones, fetal position, size, and overall well-being. Did you know that there's a technique care providers can use that's called Leopold's Maneuver that can check all of these things, and they only need to use their hands?

My obstetrician, his nurse-practitioner, and my midwife all use Leopold's Maneuver. I didn't have more than one ultrasound in each pregnancy, because my care provider was able to determine the baby's well-being with their hands. Not only was it extremely simple and helpful, but it's also comforting to have high touch care like that. I definitely prefer it over the cold jelly and hard probe of the ultrasound machine.

There is some question about the safety of ultrasounds. We don't know how safe ultrasonography is on a developing fetus, as no long-term studies have been done. Ultrasound machines are not regulated, and the wave frequency has not been tested for safety. We don't have any evidence against it, but we also have no evidence to support its routine use during pregnancy. Ultrasounds in the last trimester of pregnancy are also unreliable in determining a baby's size. The estimation can be off by a full pound, more or less. With these questions in mind, wouldn't you prefer to use a proven hands-on technique rather than an unproven technology?

I'll leave you with an excerpt from the post by the Midwife Next Door:

"Women in labor need hands-on care. It’s known that women who have a female birth companion with them during labor have fewer c-sections and faster births, with fewer epidurals needed. Why is this? I believe it’s because a machine can never replace a human, even if it is more accurate in certain assessments. A machine may be able to tell me that this woman is only 3 centimeters dilated, but my eyes and ears tell me that she looks and acts as if she’s in transition, and guess what? Most of the time, my eyes and ears don’t lie, and we have a baby within the hour.

"In our push to improve birth outcomes, we continue to move farther away from the hands-on, low-tech models of countries with exemplary birth statistics, such as the Netherlands, England, and other countries where midwife-attended births are the norm. Instead of looking for new machines to meet this goal, why not look to the example of cultures who are working within the midwifery model of care that is already meeting this goal?"

Kangaroo Care

Human Nature

Mother's Touch

by Ashley Montagu

Human kids and kangaroo kids have more in common than you might think. By studying marsupial mothering, researchers are gaining valuable new insights into the needs of vulnerable newborns.

A human body is not a finished product. The newborn elephant and the newborn fallow deer can run with the herd shortly after they are born. A six-week-old seal navigates the seas by itself. Human beings, however, can't even crawl until they are 8 to 10 months old; they can't walk or talk until they're about 14 months old. Why are human beings born more immature and why do they stay immature longer than any other animal?

Like the newborn marsupial that crawls over its mother's damp fur to her pouch, there to spend up to six months completing its development, the human newborn is only half-formed. It could be said that a child's birth is not an end of gestation but a bridge between growth within the womb and growth outside it. The elephant, deer, seal and human all have long gestation periods – ranging from an average period of 630 days for the elephant to about 266 days for humans. Yet only humans are born so immature, their growth divided into a period inside the womb (uterogestation) and a period outside the womb (exterogestation). It appears that if babies weren't born when they are, they couldn't be born at all.

At birth, the brain of the average seven-pound infant weighs roughly 380 grams. To be as talented and capable as a newborn elephant, deer or seal, the human infant would need the 825-gram brain of a one-year old. Clearly, infants can't wait until they've grown a brain that big before being born – their heads would be too large to fit through the mother's birth canal. They must be born with the biggest possible brain that still allows them to get out and then do the rest of their brain-growing after birth.

As Professor John Bostock of the University of Queensland, Australia, suggested, what I call the period of exterogestation is over when a child can crawl on all fours. Amazingly, the average time for this achievement is 266 days – exactly the same length as the average pregnancy.

Two-stage gestation might have been an adaptation to several important changes during the early evolution of the human species. The move from the forest to the open plains demanded an erect posture and a bigger brain. The pelvic outlet grew smaller while the brain grew larger.

If this two-stage theory of gestation is sound, then we are not adequately meeting the needs of infants. We fail to give attention to gestation outside the womb.

The human infant is almost as immature as the infant opossum or kangaroo, but whereas the marsupial infant enjoys the protection of its mother's pouch, the human infant has no such advantage.

The symbiotic relationship maintained by mother and fetus throughout pregnancy should not end at birth; indeed, it is naturally designed to become more intense during exterogestation. The mother who is equipped to give sustenance and shelter inside the womb is equipped to do so outside the womb, at least as efficiently as the marsupial mother.

The warmth with which the mother enfolds her child while breast-feeding is psychologically analogous to the pouch enclosing a suckling marsupial. However, little marsupials, with free access to their mother's breast, suckle when they wish; human infants are generally suckled when their mothers think they should be. Children are therefore in a much more dependent, indeed more hazardous, state than marsupials; they should be nursed on demand, rather than by the clock.

When the human mother breast-feeds her child, the pair make eye contact vital to the psychological development of the child. The mother lovingly coos, talks and sings to the child, cuddling, kissing and caressing it. As important as breast-feeding itself are its associated sensory stimuli – the sights, sounds, smells, taste and warm feelings that comprise the enfolding love that ought to be the birthright of every child.

Several studies show that early deprivation of maternal care leads, in many animals, to failure of both individual and social development. The human infant is in many ways more dependent on such sociopsychological care, not merely because it is born in such an immature state, but because becoming a competent human being is much more complicated than becoming a competent baboon.