Bonding with your baby

yaBonding is the intense attachment that develops between parents and their babies. Bonding is a process that takes place soon after birth, when baby and parents are able to know each other and develop an “ attachment “.

The need of attachment is a physiological need that depends on the massive quantity of hormones released immediately after birth. In the specific, here are the hormones released by cells:

• Oxytocin: about 30 minutes after birth, the level of oxytocin is very high especially when mother and baby share the first glances and it guarantees the establishment of the maternal behaviour and make mothers become attached to and nourish their baby immediately after birth;
• Maternal adrenaline: is the hormone that makes birth sticked forever in mother’s mind and at the same time helps mothers to recognize every single signal of their newborn;
• Foetal adrenaline: is the hormone that allows all the stimulations received after birth to be sticked in newborn’s mind;
• Endorphin: it allows mothers to always remember birth as a very positive experience.
• Prolactin: a peptide hormone primarily associated with lactation that stimulates the production of milk. Apart from this, it helps to develop the maternal instinct.
  

Many scientists have studied the development of the bonding in human beings and during the course of time, it has been highly demonstrated how it is possible to encourage or obstruct this process.
Granted that bonding is influenced by some aspects which are impossible to avoid ( parents’ characteristics, the type of birth, newborn and mother’s help ), there are some behaviours that favour the attachment between parents and baby. One of these consists in trying to hold the baby on the bare chest to promote a sense of protective closeness, especially soon after birth.

Touch is the first sense that baby develops inside the womb. During the 90 minutes subsequent to birth, baby is in a state of strong attention in which she can perceive what’s happening around her, especially through touch. For this reason, it is extremely important that, during the 2 hours immediately after birth, mother and baby have a skin-to-skin contact. Obviously, this contact can’t be possible if the health conditions of mother and baby don’t allow it, especially if there is the need of doing urgent medical surveys. Sometimes, it happens that newborn babies are put into heated cribs and they are entrusted to the care of doctors and nurses; or, it can happen that mothers are not able to hold baby in their arms. In this case, the best thing to do is to let the father take care of the baby which is very important as it is the first contact he has ever had with her.Studies have shown that if parents remain alone with the newborn, there is a higher chance for her to stop crying quicker.

Another sense highly developed in newborn is olfaction and at the beginning, both mother and baby use this sense to recognize each other. The first milk product, colostrum, smells like the amniotic fluid and the newborn feels safe just like he was inside the womb.
An essential factor to encourage bonding is breastfeeding soon after birth. Indeed, breastfeeding raises the immune defenses in babies and increases the quantity of oxytocin and prolactin released in mothers.

Even if the sight is reduced, newborns use sight to perceive what’s around them. Newborns’ eyes can only focus up to a distance of 17/30 cm, enough to focus the face of the parents who’s holding him. At the beginning, newborns are attracted by round, dark objects, as for example, mother and father’s eyes.

Hearing is also very important for bonding. A newborn quickly learns to recognize mom’s voice and as a related effect, he tries to get her attention by crying.

Some scientist have studied the development of bonding in animals and studied have shown that if the offspring is taken away from the mother and then reunited to her, she will refuse him.

Obviously, for human beings things are different: in fact, bonding and attachment and all the relationships related to them can take place later on too, without any consequence on parent-baby’s relationship. There will be many other occasions to cradle the baby, take her for a walk in the stroller, feeding her, rock her or just live special moments with her, such as bath, feeding time and nappy changing.

And what about you? Did you feel an overwhelming rush of love when your baby was first placed in your arms or you developed an attachement only later on?
We are curious to know more about your experience!