The Power of Mom’s Touch
On my blog this week, I discussed the power of a parent’s lifestyle choices and how their emotional health affects their children’s health. However, there is another factor that often gets overlooked, the power of connection in a mother’s touch.
Recently, a long term study in Biological Psychiatry demonstrated how loving touch is important for babies’ physical and emotional development. In this study, researchers followed 73 premature infants until age 10. The results demonstrated that the children who had received maternal contact as infants exhibited better sleeping patterns, more balanced hormonal responses to stress, a more mature nervous system, and better thinking skills.
This adds to the evidence from previous research linking premature babies that are held directly after birth to have an enhanced development over preemies that aren’t held. Previous studies have also demonstrated long term effects of bonding with mother and its predictive value of a child’s future romantic behavior decades later in life.
Now, what can parents do to ensure healthy and happy emotional and physical health for their children from this day forward?
On my recent blog, I provided a summary of nine lifestyle areas that parents can implement to positively influence their child’s health. Here’s a brief summary:
- Make healthy dietary choices
- Demonstrate stress management
- Include proper, quality, individualized supplemental support prenatally
- Encourage exercise
- Allow for restoration and rest
- Provide a non-toxic home environment
- Include family dinners throughout the week
- Take time to examine parenting behavior
- Own a pet (specifically a dog)
For more details on the above, I invite you to visit my homepage.
I look forward to your feedback.
Sources:
Gholipour, B. ‘Kangaroo Care’ May Have Positive Longterm Effects For Babies (STUDY). Huffington Post. January 10, 2014.
Elsevier. Biological Psychiatry Press Releases: The Loving Touch is Critical for Premature Infants January 6, 2014.
Salamon, M. Baby-Mother Bonds Affect Future Adult Relationships, Study Finds. Live science. December 2011.
