This week’s Gratitude post is inspired by a wonderful book by Sharon Heller, Ph.D. entitled The Vital Touch: How Intimate Contact with Your Baby Leads to Happier, Healthier Development. The Vital Touch, and as indicated in the title, discusses the importance of touch and intimacy between parents and their babies, especially in the industrialized culture of the modernized world. Some of my favorite passages from The Vital Touch challenged me to examine my own attempts at being compassionate and affectionate while parenting. And, like any thoughtful and loving parent, I wondered whether or not I give my daughter the adequate love and care needed as she journeys from infancy to toddlerhood and onward to her pre-school years. Below are 5 outstanding reasons why I am loving The Vital Touch; let’s begin with birth:
1. Doulas. “The doula has an incredible ability to mitigate maternal stress and to influence the progress of labor” (20). Sharon Heller’s cites that the presence of doulas with laboring mothers reduces C-sections by 50% (or more) and the length of labor by 25%. Heller also cites an anecdote from the renowned pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton, about a laboring Mayan Indian mother whose labor stopped when her mid-wife left the room–everything that Brazelton tried to do to restart her labor failed. When the mid-wife returned to the laboring mother, her labor restarted and she delivered as normal. Why are doulas such a powerful force for laboring women? According to Heller’s research: “Through touch, [the doula] taps into the mother’s feelings, into her need for reassurance and for nurturance. And through touch she taps the mind’s own drugstore, releasing endorphins–a natural pain killer–and raising the level of serotonin in the mother’s bloodstream, relieving depression” (20).
Considering a doula’s magical touch in aiding the progression of labor and in the relief of pain during labor, parents opting for no interventions and a drug free birth may find the support they need in a doula. While I did not seek a doula for my last birth experience, I’ve been told that doulas are wonderful birth assistants for fathers too, keeping dad comfortable and helping him to understand the natural progression of labor.
2. Skin-to-skin contact. “Our first experience is the warmth of other bodies,” writes Heller. She explains that skin-to-skin contact comforts and soothes babies, helps regulates their body temperature (since mothers act as natural thermostats for their babies), decreases the release of the stress hormone cortisol in newborns, and when combined with stroking, increases preemie and newborn weight gain.
When I gave birth to Annabelle, she was placed upon my stomach and seemed to inch up towards my breasts to nurse. We lay there together, skin-to-skin, an unbelievable way to spend my first moments with the child I had waited so long to meet. From this first meeting, I nursed her on demand and held her whenever she cried for me to comfort her. Considering that she arrived 3 weeks early and weighed less than 6 lbs., I was grateful to learn that she not only maintained her birth weight but gained a few ounces by the time we took her to her first pediatric appointment, just days after she was born.
3. The embrace. Heller rightly states that by holding our babies close against our bodies, “the embrace is the ultimate baby pacifier” (46). She goes on to explain that the more often that babies are held, the more stable and secure they feel–not having to panic each time they are separated from their mothers for diapering, riding in the car, or lying in a crib. A baby, she notes, is “designed for continual contact,” which can offset problems of self-esteem and detachment from one’s own body later in life.
By holding our newborns, infants, toddlers, and older children when they need us, we offer them the love they’ll need for a better sense of security throughout their lives. My own experiences as a mother are new, so I cannot attest to whether or not providing continual contact to my baby results in a healthy, emotionally balanced older child and later adult; but what I can share is that continual contact with me and her father in the early months has meant that now, at 18 months, she is incredibly outgoing and takes on the world with determination, often leading me and her father to explore new places and try new things with her. If you had asked one of her grandparents whether they predicted that our “clinging” and “attached” baby would turn into a toddler who’s ready for adventure, they likely would have said no. So, so far, I’m grateful we gave her the continual contact she so prominently demanded in infancy.
4. Breastfeeding. Heller not only opens up a worthwhile discussion of the sensuality of breastfeeding and whether or not a visible breast ought to be considered provocative, but she also details the many benefits of breastfeeding for both mother and child: 1) it’s a complete nutritional source of food “supplying . . . 37 known immune mechanisms”; 2) reduces food allergies and regulates digestive functions; 3) protects against cancer, diabetes, and other health problems; 4) may protect against obesity; 5) may increase IQ by 8 points due to DHA, an omega-3 fat that aids in brain development; 6) reduces gas and indigestion; 7) completes the mother’s reproductive cycle which began with pregnancy; and 
“is the ultimate intimate experience between mother and baby.”
Again, I can’t share a longterm outcome of my breastfeeding experience or tell you that my daughter is a certified baby genius, but what I can attest to based on Heller’s discussion of breastfeeding is that my daughter was rarely sick as a newborn, that breastfeeding her on demand helped me “regain my figure,” and also that breastfeeding my baby truly is a wonderful bonding opportunity for us both. Biologically, it seems that mothers are programed to nurse their babies: breastfeeding helps with the release of oxytocin which “makes the mother want to hug and fondle her baby, strengthening the mother-baby bond,” and prolactin, the “mothering” hormone also rises making us want to hold and “mother” our babies.
Heller’s discussion of breastfeeding expands from these main points, and she notes the many obstacles to breastfeeding in a modern culture and how bottle feeding became popular. I will note that the chapters on breastfeeding are rich with information.
5. Co-sleeping. Heller refutes the myth that co-sleeping endangers newborn babies. She writes: “Co-sleeping has always had a survival value, both physical and psychological. In the past, if mother and infant shared a bed, a hammock . . . the baby was better protected from predators and stayed warm.” She also argues that mothers sleep better with baby sleeping at her side because she can rest well knowing that her baby is okay. For babies, who are born with an innate fear of darkness and being alone, sleeping alongside mother and father eases their anxiety and puts less stress on their systems.
Heller than takes on the arguments had by opponents to co-sleeping, which include “threat of suffocation” (she explains the history of this fear, beginning with intentional suffocating of infants among the poor who could not afford to care for another child), fear of incest, and insistence on a baby’s “self-reliance” and ability to sleep on its own (Heller juxtaposes our culture’s preoccupation with independence to Japanese culture’s ideal of interdependence. The Japanese consider co-sleeping a model of harmony and interdependence within the family).
And what about SIDS? Heller reports that “in urban societies where mothers and babies sleep separately, as in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand, incidents of SIDS are the highest. In urban societies where mothers and babies co-sleep, as in Hong-Kong, Stockholm, Tokyo, and Israel, incidents of SIDS are low.”
Our family, honestly, fell into co-sleeping, and our decision to sleep together as a family is an ongoing discussion between my husband and me. Co-sleeping often leads to more frequent night wakings (a survival instinct for a baby), it also means that night wakings are shorter and less abrupt, meaning that I am able to nurse our daughter and return to sleep with ease. Co-sleeping also increases bonding time between my husband and daughter and allows us to stay in tune with her throughout the night: hearing her breathe, noting her temperature and quickly picking up on fever, and listening to coughs, cries, etc.
Co-sleeping works and appears in various forms and situations, depending on the family. In our family, sometimes co-sleeping means that our daughter falls asleep in her crib beside our bed and sleeps there through the night; other nights mean that she falls asleep in our bed and sleeps beside me or between the two of us. Honestly, co-sleeping has produced a nighttime situation in our family that involves less crying (from all involved) and easy, convenient nursing for me and my daughter.
Heller’s The Vital Touch has been a rewarding read for me, challenging me to think about the choices that our family is making as we raise our daughter. I hope my 5 favorite parts about this book have been helpful for those interested in the book and in attachment parenting. E-mail me or comment if you have or plan to read the book.
Cheers,
Green Mamma
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
