Breastfeeding provides the opportunity harmonious development, which is determined not only by the composition of human milk, but also by the contact between mother and child (visual, tactile, verbal), which is an important component of the process breastfeeding. That is why breastfeeding is a continuation of the bond between mother and child, established during pregnancy and interrupted during childbirth. The contact between mother and child formed during breastfeeding influences the development of mother-child relationships in the future. age periods.
The bond between mother and child begins to form as early as intrauterine period: amniotrophic nutrition appears at 3-5 months of gestation. During the third trimester of pregnancy, unborn babies drink 15 to 40 ml of amniotic fluid per hour. It is amniotrophic nutrition that is the mechanism of adaptation to postnatal lactotrophic nutrition. The smell of amniotic fluid is similar to the smell of the secretion of the areola glands mother's breast, which allows the child to recognize his biological mother.
After the birth of a child, the mother-fetus connection through the umbilical cord is broken, which is currently designated in psychology by the term “birth crisis.” This crisis is due to the fact that after birth and tying the umbilical cord, the child gains freedom, but physiologically “loses” his mother. The child finds himself in an environment that differs from the environment during the prenatal period. Everything changes: the usual aquatic environment - to the air, which differs in temperature, humidity, light, concentration of free oxygen, microbial and antigenic load, and the presence of direct sensory influence. The force of gravity acts on the child. Tactile, visual, and auditory sensations become unusually intense. The feeling of the mother’s warmth, her smell, voice, and heartbeat connects the newborn with the previous intrauterine life and makes birth non-traumatic. The postnatal equivalent of a placenta is breastfeeding.
There is evidence that the frequency of crying in the first two years, attachment to the mother and some psychological problems in older age depend on how much time a child spends in contact with his mother after childbirth and in the first days of life, as well as on the quality of this contact. It should be emphasized that bodily contact is unique to mammals. IN last years great attention Psychologists and pediatricians focus on skin-to-skin contact. Keeping the baby close to the mother helps him regulate his own body temperature, metabolic processes, levels of enzymes and hormones, heart rate and respiratory movements.
It is believed that a close connection with the mother begins to form from the first minutes, at first sight. This point about the importance of bonding was first expressed by pediatricians Marshall Klaus and John Kennell. These researchers indicate that a baby's crying increases blood flow to the mother's breasts. D. Chamberlain views the separation of mothers and babies as an emotional test.
According to new perinatal technologies to support breastfeeding, the first contact between mother and child should be at least 30 minutes. In this case, the baby should not be immediately applied to the mother’s nipple. The baby should be placed on the mother's stomach, after which a search reflex appears: the newborn finds the nipple, begins to suck and starts lactation.
It is believed that it is the first hour of a child’s life that is crucial for the phenotypic realization of maternal feelings and full, long-term lactation. This is due to the fact that the state of greatest activity of the newborn’s brain occurs in the second half hour of life. The state of the mother after childbirth, characterized as stressful in terms of the intensity of emotions, but experienced as euphoria, high level arousal of the child is the physiological basis for the emergence of strong emotional connection. The perception of the biological mother is also extremely important for the child, which gives rise to a feeling of attachment to the mother, which undoubtedly has an impact on the harmonious development of the child. Breastfeeding is important for mental development child, since it is a form of communication between mother and child. This is one of the hallmarks of breastfeeding.
Despite all the undeniable benefits of breastfeeding, by the age of six months, on average in Russia, just over half of children are breastfed. According to our data, 4% of children from birth begin to receive artificial mixtures. There are also cases when infants with preserved lactation refuse their mother's breast; in these cases, they resort to feeding with expressed milk from a bottle. However, breastfeeding is a form of mother-baby communication, and this is one of the fundamental differences between bottle feeding (even if it is expressed breast milk). When feeding a baby with expressed breast milk from a bottle, the child receives all the necessary nutrients and protective factors, but may lose the opportunity to communicate with the mother during feeding if the child is fed expressed milk by the grandmother, father, nanny, and not the mother.
Techniques for establishing contact with the baby when feeding with expression human milk
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What to do if the mother wants to breastfeed, but breastfeeding either did not take place, or took place, but not for the duration that the mother would like, or bottle feeding with expressed breast milk takes place? Often these mothers develop a “feeling of guilt” in front of the child, because, in their opinion, the connection with the baby will be lost. Doctors must convince the mother that she is not to blame for the current situation, and that love and communication with the child can maintain contact with him. The technique of feeding the baby should be changed. Studies have shown that the feeding frequency of demand-fed newborns by the end of the first month averaged 8.0 ± 2.7 times per day. The average duration of breastfeeding during the newborn period can be 30-40 minutes or more, then it is reduced to 15-20 minutes in the second or third month of a child’s life, and the time of bottle feeding a child is often less than 10 minutes. Thus, when breastfeeding, a child has the opportunity to communicate with his mother only during daytime feedings for about 7-8 hours during the newborn period and about three hours in the first months of life, and with artificial feeding - a little more than an hour.
Traditionally, bottle feeding involves holding the baby and giving him a bottle with a nipple, or feeding the baby in the crib. As observations show, very often the mother entrusts feeding the child from a bottle to the nanny, grandmother, or father. This is how the task at hand is solved - feeding the child. But feeding a child in the first year of life has not only nutritional significance. This has already been noted as mother-child communication. It should be noted that among the accessories for breastfeeding, already in the 80s of the twentieth century, a special device was proposed (SNS (Supplementary Nutrition System) - an additional feeding system developed by the Swiss company Medela for supplementing the baby with expressed human milk or human milk substitutes.
This device consists of a graduated container for formula/expressed milk and soft capillaries. The kit includes capillaries of three different sizes.
One of the capillaries is given to the baby during breastfeeding. The baby suckles from the mother's breast and is supplemented with either formula or expressed breast milk. The sippy cup is equipped with a neck cord with an adjustable length, which allows you to control the flow of milk by placing the bottle above or below the nipples. An additional system can be used not only in case of a lack of milk, but also during the period of formation or restoration of lactation, when feeding immature children with a weak sucking reflex, or even when feeding adopted children.
Unfortunately, this method of supplementary feeding is rarely used due to a lack of information from both nursing mothers and medical professionals.
In recent years, it has become generally accepted to supplement children with expressed breast milk using a spoon. Soft spoons SoftCup for supplementary feeding are used as an alternative to a bottle with a nipple. The soft lower spoon-shaped part provides better dosing than using a cup or sippy cup - the spoon fills automatically when the reservoir is squeezed. At the beginning of feeding, the baby does not need to suck in air, since there is a membrane valve between the bottle and the tip, which also prevents milk from spilling.
This method is the prevention of a child’s refusal to breastfeed and is most suitable for supplementary feeding with expressed breast milk or formula. The device is also successfully used when feeding premature babies, children with various sucking disorders, with maxillofacial (cleft upper lip and soft palate) pathologies.
Techniques for establishing contact with a baby during artificial feeding
If a mother is formula feeding her baby, the pediatrician's job is to teach the mother the technique of formula feeding. This will compensate for the mother's possible lack of attention. What should be the bottle feeding technique? Bottle feeding should be done by the mother. To feed, the mother takes the baby in her arms. At the same time, she should stroke the child. The baby's hands should be free so that he can touch the mother. Eye to eye contact is very important. After feeding, if the child does not fall asleep, you should hold him in your arms and talk to him. The contact time between mother and child with this approach will be at least 20-30 minutes. This method of feeding is especially indicated for mothers who really wanted to feed the child, but for reasons beyond her control were forced to transfer him to artificial feeding. The “feeling of guilt” in mothers can be relieved by communicating with the child and using feeding to communicate with him.
Thus, breastfeeding has not only nutritional value, not only contributes to the harmonious development of the child, but, very importantly, is a continuation of contact between mother and child, the source of which is the intrauterine period. The contact formed during breastfeeding undoubtedly influences the formation of parental relationships in subsequent age periods and is the subject of research by psychologists.
Literature
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- Demin V. F., Klyuchnikov S. O., Mukhina Yu. G. Lectures on pediatrics. T. 7. Dietetics and nutritionology. M., 2007. 396 p.
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- Fateeva E. M., Kovalenko N. P. Perinatal psychology as a new direction of research in the breastfeeding support system // Questions of children's dietology. 2005, vol. 3, no. 6, p. 52-57.
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- Winnicott D.V. Little children and their mothers (translated from English). M.: Klass, 1998. 80 p.
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M. V. Gmoshinskaya,Doctor of Medical Sciences
Research Institute of Nutrition of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Moscow
Bonding, a term denoting the state of emotional closeness between parents and child at the time of birth, became widely known in the 80s. The concept of bonding was proposed by Drs. M. Klaus and J. Kennell in their classic book, The Mother-Child Ties. These scientists argue that in humans, as in animals, there is a period of "perceptual hypersensitivity" immediately after birth during which mothers and newborns are programmed to connect with and care for each other. Comparing mother-child pairs who were inseparable immediately after the birth of the child with those who did not contact, they concluded that later the former turned out to be more attached to each other.
When this idea found its way into the maternity ward, it was met with mixed reactions. Parents and pediatricians were enthusiastic about it, mostly because it made sense. Behavioral researchers were skeptical that the first few hours a mother and child spent together would have a lasting effect.
We studied the concept of communication thoroughly. We have studied the work of other researchers and made observations ourselves and have come to conclusions that we hope are well founded.
Mother-newborn bond
Emotional intimacy is essentially a continuation of the relationship that began to develop during pregnancy, it was strengthened by the constant awareness of the new life growing inside the mother. The physical and chemical changes that occur in your body remind you of your baby's presence. Birth cements the connection and turns it into reality. Now you can see and talk to a little person who was previously only a “bulge”, whose movements you felt inside you, whose heartbeat you heard with the help of medical devices. Emotional intimacy transforms your life-giving love for the being within you into a caring love for the being outside of you. When the child was inside, you gave him your blood; when he is outside, you give him milk, your eyes, your hands, your voice - all of you.
The emotional closeness of mother and newborn unites them again. Research into the mother-child bond has been a catalyst for family-centered hospital delivery services. Newborns were transferred from children's rooms to their mothers' wards. Mothers were restored to their primary role in caring for newborns.
The inextricable bond between mother and child does not arise immediately and forever. Although there is not sufficient evidence to suggest that the separation of a mother from her child at the time of his birth has a negative impact on future relationships between parents and children, we believe that the emergence of emotional closeness during this period of biologically heightened sensitivity of perception provides a good start for the formation of further relationships. But one cannot think that these initial relationships cement the relationship between parents and child once and for all. Overestimation of the initial period causes a feeling of hopelessness in mothers who, due to complicated childbirth, were temporarily separated from their babies. The spread of this misunderstanding of the role of the initial period in the development of subsequent relationships has caused an epidemic of melancholy in mothers who have undergone caesarean sections and in mothers of premature babies transferred to intensive care units.
What can be said about children who, for various reasons (for example, premature birth or caesarean section) found themselves temporarily separated from their mothers? Can the damage caused by the loss of early contact be repaired? Without any doubt, it is possible, especially if you don’t give in to despondency. The concept of creating emotional intimacy at an absolutely critical time, now or never, is flawed. Birth, infancy, childhood - there are many periods during which the contact between mother and child is strengthened. If we follow our method of rapprochement, which creates inextricable bonds between mother and child, then after their reunification, the loss of such a significant period of early contacts is gradually compensated. We know parents who adopted children a week old, who after the first contact with them showed such deep feelings, such care that were in no way inferior to the feelings of the biological parents at the time of the birth of the child.
Newborns and fathers
Most studies dealt with the mother-child bond, while fathers were only mentioned with due respect. In recent years, fathers have also come under scrutiny and have even earned a special term for their relationship with their baby at the moment of birth - "all-consuming attention." We used to talk about the help provided by fathers, now we talk about all-consuming attention, meaning highest degree involvement in parenting and joys. This new term means not only what the father does for the child (holding him in his arms, soothing him), but also what the child does for the father. Close contact with the child after birth develops subtlety of feelings in the father.
It is believed that fathers, when entrusted with children, do not so much nurse them as guard them. They play a secondary role, helping the mother while she is busy with the child. This is not entirely true. They have their own approach to the child, and the child needs them.
Studies of fathers' behavior show that when given the opportunity to actively participate in the care of newborns, they become as caring caregivers as mothers. They may be a little less quick and slower to open up than mothers, but they are capable of deep affection for very tiny children.
Bonding with your baby after a caesarean section
C-section - surgery. But this is, first of all, childbirth, you shouldn’t forget about it. If a caesarean section is necessary, this does not mean losing contact with the baby; it just shifts a little in time and the roles change. Fathers are now allowed to be present at caesarean section births, and it is nice to see a father with his newborn during such a birth. Here opportunities open up to help establish early contact with the baby.
Mother's advice. Using local anesthesia, called an epidural, you lose sensation from your belly button to your fingertips. Unlike general anesthesia epidural anesthesia, which puts you to sleep during labor, allows you to stay awake during the surgical procedure and, despite the operation, enjoy the arrival of your baby. Your contact time with your newborn will be limited as you are still very weak. You will only be able to hold the baby with one hand, since the other will be occupied by the IV. You will spend only a few minutes cheek to cheek with your child, looking at each other. It is important that you felt each other immediately after the birth of the child. Although after a caesarean section contact with the baby is established differently, it still took place.
Advice for father. During the operation, you will be able to sit at the edge of the table and hold your wife's hand. At the moment of birth, you will be able to look behind the sterile sheets and see your baby being delivered. The baby will be immediately placed in a special heated box, amniotic fluid will be sucked out if necessary, oxygen will be given and all systems will be made sure that they are working properly. After everything necessary for it has been done (which usually takes much longer than with normal birth), you or the doctor bring the baby to the mother so that she can spend a little time with him and feel his closeness. When the operation is completed and your wife is transferred to the recovery room, you and your child can go to the nursery and work with him. Hold the child, rock him, talk to him, sing a song. If a child needs special assistance, you will be able to sit near the isolation ward - they will call you when it is possible. You will be able to touch your baby, the baby will hear your voice. You will find that he will respond to your voice, which he heard all along in the womb. Fathers who have the opportunity to touch and nurse their newborn immediately after birth find it easier to bond with their baby later.
A few more tips
Ask to delay routine processing . Often, the nurse delivering the baby immediately after the birth of the child begins to work on it - gives an injection of vitamin K, injects a disinfectant into the eyes and only then hands it over to the mother. Ask your sister to postpone these procedures for about an hour so that the baby can enjoy his first mother's caresses. After disinfecting the eyes, the child temporarily sees worse or closes his eyes. The child's first impressions of his mother are important; he needs to see her.
Stay together . Ask your doctor and nurse to place the baby on your stomach and chest immediately after birth or after cutting the umbilical cord and suctioning amniotic fluid, if everything is okay with you and him.
Let your baby nurse immediately after birth . Most babies simply lick the nipple, but there are also those who immediately begin to suck greedily. As already mentioned, this stimulation of the nipple causes the production of the hormone oxytocin, which helps to contract the uterus and reduce postpartum bleeding. The production of prolactin is also stimulated, which accelerates the appearance of milk.
Touch the baby . You are pleased to feel that it is good for the baby to lie the way he is settled: tummy to tummy, cheek to chest; caress his whole body. We noticed that mothers and fathers showed their affection differently. Young mothers usually caressed the baby's entire body, gently touching it with their fingertips. Fathers often placed their palm on the child's head, as if showing their readiness to protect this sprout of life that they had given birth to. Stroking the body, in addition to pleasure, brings benefits to the baby. The skin is very rich in nerve endings. When a child begins to breathe air, at first he breathes irregularly, stroking stimulates the nerve endings, makes breathing more rhythmic - this is the medicine, parental touch.
Look at the newborn . A newborn sees best at a distance of 8 to 10 inches (20 to 25 cm). Surprisingly, this corresponds to the distance from the nipple to the mother's eyes during feeding. Hold your baby in front of you, supporting his head so that your eyes meet. Enjoy this eye contact for a short time while the baby calmly listens after birth (then he falls soundly asleep). Looking into the eyes of a child, you experience a surge of maternal feelings.
Talk to your newborn . During the first hours and days after birth, mother and baby begin their own special conversation. Studies have shown that when hearing the mother's voice, the child calms down and begins to breathe more rhythmically.
William Sears and Martha Sears. Your child.
The bond between mother and child during pregnancy is absolute: everything the mother goes through, the baby experiences too. The mother is the child’s first universe, his “living raw material base” from both a material and mental point of view. The mother is also an intermediary between the outside world and the child. The human being forming inside the womb does not perceive it directly, it continuously picks up the sensations, feelings and thoughts that it evokes in the mother the world. This being registers the first information, capable of coloring the future personality in a certain way, in cell tissue, in organic memory and at the level of the nascent psyche.
The bond between mother and child is a fact as old as time. Since ancient times, women have always intuitively felt this connection. For ancient civilizations, the importance of the pregnancy period was an absolutely immutable truth. The Egyptians, Indians, Celts, Africans and many other peoples developed a set of laws for mothers, couples and society as a whole who provided for the child best conditions for life and development. More than a thousand years ago in China, there were prenatal clinics where expectant mothers spent the pregnancy period surrounded by peace and beauty.
Psychologists and psychiatrists have identified the presence of a significant factor indicating the importance of the mother-child connection: this is the quality of the emotional connection that exists between mother and child. The love with which a mother bears a child; thoughts associated with its appearance; the wealth of communication that the mother shares with him influences the developing psyche of the fetus and its cellular memory, forming the basic personality qualities that persist throughout subsequent life.
Of particular importance is the awareness of the connection between mother and child by the pregnant woman herself. In particular, research shows that if the mother did not think about the child she was carrying in her womb. that is, she did not imagine him, did not talk to him, did not try to concentrate on his feelings, then such children at birth have a weight that did not reach the average, they more often experience various serious disorders in the functioning of the digestive tract and nervous disorders. IN early age Such children cry a lot more. They also experience certain difficulties in the process of adapting to the environment and to life. Thus, mothers pay for their ignorance of the fact that the breeding ground for development is their own feelings and thoughts, and the need for love arises even before birth.
During carrying a child Close contact is established between mother and fetus, which is carried out mainly through the umbilical cord. Already in the second trimester, the child drinks, according to estimates, from 15 to 40 ml of amniotic fluid, the smell of which is similar to the smell of the secretion secreted by the areolas of the mammary gland. This nutrition prepares the baby for further breastfeeding. Thus, the child learns to literally recognize his real mother by smell. Of course, the baby feels the mother’s biorhythms, her emotions and experiences, her heartbeat. After the baby leaves the womb and loses its last connection with the mother at the moment of cutting the umbilical cord, a “birth crisis” occurs. The baby is entering a completely new world.
The aquatic environment is being replaced by air, not so warm and humid. The force of gravity begins to act on the small organism and collapses a large number of antigens - bacteria, viruses, fungi. A newborn is exposed to many stimuli at once: sounds, light, touch and many others that did not disturb him in the womb. All this is a huge stress for the child, and in order to smooth it out, it is necessary to make the transition from one environment to another as smooth as possible. This is achieved through maternal warmth, smell, voice, touch and, of course, breastfeeding.
The connection between a child and his mother in the first hours after birth
The first hours after appearance baby birth is one of the most important periods in the formation of the bond between mother and child. Experts have established a direct parallel between how often a baby cries and how much time the mother spent with him in the first hours after birth. Poor contact between mother and child can lead to further consequences psychological problems in the development of the baby and the lack of attachment to the mother. Touching the mother is necessary for the child not only from a psychological, but also from a physiological point of view. Skin-to-skin contact helps the newborn regulate its own body temperature, the amount of hormones and enzymes released, and all metabolic processes in general. The connection is established already in the first minutes after birth. When a baby is placed on the mother's stomach, it turns on unconditioned reflex, he finds the nipple and begins the lactation period.
However, maintaining close communication with newborns It is important not only for him, but also for the mother herself. Experts have concluded that crying and the amount of contact with it also affect the process of milk formation. In addition, the first 30 minutes of contact immediately after birth include the maternal instinct, which is inherent in every woman to one degree or another. Formation strong connection between mother and child is facilitated by the fact that both of them are in a state of strong emotional outburst. The child is due to the transition to another environment and the loss of physiological connection with the mother. Mother - due to the loss of connection with the child and the feeling of euphoria, joy due to the fact that the baby was born. Feeling in unison, mother and her baby are united under the influence of strong emotions.
Mother-baby bond during breastfeeding
Breast-feeding is very important aspect in the process of normal psychological development of a child because this is a unique form of communication. At this moment, the baby smells a familiar smell loved one, the beating of the mother’s heart, her breathing, hears her voice, feels gentle touches and feels completely protected. That’s why it’s so important to talk to the baby during feeding, stroke him, and hold him close.
Mother-baby bonding while breastfeeding
There are situations when child independently refuses . Many mothers experience a certain feeling of guilt because of this, exposing themselves to stress and psychological distress. It is important to remember that in such a situation the mother is not at all to blame. In this case, you have to resort to feeding with expressed milk. Of course, all the benefits of feeding still occur, and at the same time the baby receives the substances and protective agents it needs and strengthens its immunity. But the connection with the mother, present at the time of breastfeeding, disappears if the baby is given a bottle by the father, grandmother or nanny, and this is observed quite often.
It is worth not forgetting that over time the process feeding is completed faster, and if a newborn baby is fed for 30-40 minutes, then by three months he needs 15-20 minutes. And bottle feeding can take even less - only 10 minutes. In addition, the contact is not so strong if the baby is fed without being taken out of the crib. In order not to lose contact, the mother needs to independently feed the baby with expressed milk as often as possible, while holding him in her arms, as with breastfeeding, touch and talk. Always remember that the feeding process is as much a communication function as a nutritional one, so don’t neglect it in order to have strong contact with your baby.
The connection between mother and child during artificial feeding
If feeding your own milk for some reason became impossible, the mother’s task again comes down to not losing the connection with the child that appeared during pregnancy. Undoubtedly, the selection of a suitable composition plays an important role nutritional mixture, your pediatrician will help you with this, and we partially touched on this issue in previous articles, considering what to feed children with digestive problems.
However, if breast feeding was not at all, this could cause a total deficit of maternal attention. To avoid this, the mother should bottle feed the baby herself, stroking him and looking into the baby's eyes. It is important that the baby's hands remain free and he can touch his mother independently. Do not forget that bottle feeding takes much less time than breastfeeding, so after the baby has eaten, you need to hold him in your arms for a while. This is important to comply with certain temporary standards when maintaining communication.
Thus, feeding- an act of communication between mother and baby, which affects the further development of parent-child relationships and the harmonious development of the child’s personality.
Mom just knows.
“When I was carrying you home from the maternity hospital, I looked into the envelope on the landing and froze in amazement. You looked at me with such a penetrating and meaningful gaze that from that moment I was absolutely sure - you understand everything, feel everything, know everything about me, my daughter!” - this is what my mother told me when I, pregnant, asked her about my infancy. After these words, many fragments from my already adult life formed into one picture: how my mother once called me from afar and asked how I was feeling. Because she is sure that I have a temperature. And I had one, and what a one! When the time came for me to give birth, which happened a week ahead of schedule, my mother was a hundred kilometers away at the dacha with her sister’s son. My husband and I didn’t count on any support, but she suddenly appeared on the doorstep and, without even saying hello, asked: “Have you called an ambulance?” How did you know all this? - I tortured her after each such incident. Mom shrugged: she just knew - that’s all.
Best friend.
Having become a mother, I have repeatedly noticed that a certain wordless understanding between me and my son was established as if by itself. If my bad mood was caused by reasons beyond the child’s control, the baby seemed to “adjust” to me. This became especially noticeable after a year. The child could take care of himself for a long time, especially when I was in such a state that it seemed that everything was annoying me, and it was better not to touch me again. His peace was contagious - all my troubles began to seem not so terrible. As he grew older, my son could come up, without saying a word, caress me and seem to transfer some of his inexhaustible childhood energy.
It's not always the same.
Talking with other mothers and observing their relationships with their children, I noticed that they all develop their own laws of communication. For others, everything is built on nuances; they react sensitively to each other. And some mothers are surprisingly insensitive to the signs their child gives them. And it happens that someone else’s parent manages to understand the baby’s needs earlier than his own mother.
We are connected.
It is obvious that between us and our children there is an invisible thread stretched from heart to heart. Thanks to this natural connection between mother and child, we understand almost everything without words and when one of the interlocutors does not yet know how to speak. The possibility of such a connection is provided by nature as one of the survival mechanisms, but it may not be formed, suppressed or destroyed.
The baby was born. It’s good if the maximum conditions for your immediate reunion were created in the maternity home. But anything can happen, and there are all sorts of reasons why mother and child may be separated in the first days after meeting. And during pregnancy, women realize their readiness for motherhood in different ways. The ability to feel and predict is formed gradually, it takes hours and days.
Maternal bonding (from the English word bond - “connection, bonds”) is part of universal human relations, although it is a special part. Unlike the connection with the father, the connection between mother and child is also physiological nature. There are hundreds various factors, influencing the formation of this connection.
We know that between two loving people, even if they are not relatives, an invisible psychological connection is established over time, allowing one to predict thoughts, moods, feel the subtlest changes in relationships, and feel almost someone else’s pain. What can we say about a mother and child, whose connection is maintained by nature at the hormonal level. The release of the hormone oxytocin, which especially increases in women during breastfeeding, helps to establish such a connection in the best possible way. But for mothers who have experienced a traumatic birth or do not breastfeed, this path, although difficult, is not at all closed.
Listen and you will hear.
The best way to set up your own “line of communication” is to eliminate both excessive control and indifferent laxity from your life with your baby. There is no need to make the child something like your diary, and his daily routine - a way to organize own life. Coordination of your rhythms does not tolerate fuss. Excessive worry, anxiety and wondering about “what am I doing wrong”, especially if you consciously cultivate them in yourself, is the first manifestation of your still imaginary irresponsibility. After all, with this unnecessary emotional noise you are drowning out the instinctive and intuitive impulses that your body - the mother's body - gives you.
Yes, the child is new to this world. But your child is not the first person on earth. So don't worry - he is provided by nature with enough ways to let him know what he needs at this particular moment in his life. The main thing is that there is someone to “listen” to him.
The baby addresses all his messages to his mother. And she can tune in to her child, calmly listening to his breathing when he sleeps next to him, holding him in her arms while rocking, calmly and attentively attending to the child’s natural needs, not “spying”, but also not ignoring his slightest movements. Mom learns, often almost on a subconscious level, by external, subtle signs of anxiety, by some internal clock common to both, to detect when the baby needs to “a-a” or “pee-pee.” Learns to distinguish crying from pain or hunger, dissatisfied whimpering from boredom.
Trust yourself and your child.
Various materials that we can glean from the literature on child care, from personal experience other mothers are very important. Take recommendations with confidence (if they are worthy), but also with a healthy dose of criticism. Which is appropriate, if only because the experience of each mother and child not only has common characteristics (otherwise, what’s the point of generalizing and discussing something, drawing conclusions!), but also individual traits. And it is these “details”, barely noticeable to an outsider, but obvious to a sensitive mother, that make your relationship with own child unique.
Rejoice and seek peace among your worries. Then you will be able to clearly hear the very voice of maternal and childish affection for each other, which over time will not be drowned out by any storms of life.
