“The body is a multilingual being. It speaks through its colour and its temperature, the flush of recognition, the glow of love, the ash of pain, the heat of arousal, the coldness of non-conviction. It speaks through its constant tiny dance, sometimes swaying, sometimes a-jitter, sometimes trembling. It speaks through the leaping of the heart, the falling of the spirit, the pit at the centre, and rising hope.
The body remembers, the bones remember, the joints remember, even the little finger remembers. Memory is lodged in pictures and feelings in the cells themselves. Like a sponge filled with water, anywhere the flesh is pressed, wrung, even touched lightly, a memory may flow out in a stream.”
Clarissa Pinkola Estés, in Women Who Run With the Wolves
The idea of my body being lingual made little sense to me until I became a mother.
It’s funny because I always thought I know a lot about linguistics and communication. I mean, I have a master’s degree in language! And for my entire career I’ve been in writing and other communication roles. But even with all of this “experience”, my true real-life experience was limited. What I knew was mostly in my head. Rational, measurable, academic and/or businesslike knowledge that is so esteemed in our society that it had prevented me from going anywhere near an entirely other experience of language and communications. The embodied one.
But then my first child was born. Once he came out of my body, shaking and shrieking, the midwife laid him on my chest, where he curled up into a little ball and almost immediately became quiet, calm. It was the same with my second. Another amazing thing that I noticed the second time around – it must have happened the first time too, but I suppose it didn’t register in the overwhelming newness of everything – was the series of bodily actions that unfolded soon after. Those animal instincts that urged my tiny newborn to suck his fingers as nuzzled his face around my chest, searching for my breast. I watched in wonder as he found his way to my nipple almost entirely on his own. Meanwhile, I was smothering my baby with kisses, a biological impulse for good reason. Our first naked hours together were filled with finely-tuned impulses that no one taught us – a conversation that included no words, needed no words.
From their first moments of my children’s lives, I have been able to experience the sheer miracle of skin to skin contact a thousand times, and a thousand times it has felt like experiencing it for the first time.
Anytime we were bare body against bare body, it really felt like we could communicate in ways beyond words, almost like a secret language. As if we entered another level of contact, in a space that opened up just for us where time didn’t exist at all.
Thankfully it’s something that my partner could experience too. The benefits of skin to skin are just as remarkable with fathers as they are with mothers. In fact, if we want our fathers to be more involved in the care-taking, then skin-to-skin is a fantastic starting point. As Family Included puts it, skin to skin is “the mechanism by which the caring instincts of men are triggered, via hormonal and neurobiological changes, which in turn is the basis for all the improved outcomes observed for greater paternal involvement in care.”
So today I want to look at this phenomenon we now call skin to skin. Science is just beginning to shed some light on what we parents have always been able to feel but never explain. Although the most honest of scientists also admit that they still can’t grasp it fully, as it might be coming from a place so deeply primordial, a place where our logical faculties don’t fully register.
“After the cord is cut, the baby should be moved up to the mother’s chest. It’s something traditional cultures have always done instinctively and is now understood scientifically as an incredibly beneficial way to welcome a baby for both mother and child.
Dr. Susan Crowe, clinical associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford School of Medicine
What is skin to skin?
Skin to skin contact (SSC) involves placing a naked baby (in diaper only) belly down on mother’s bare chest, so that they’re frontal body contact is skin to skin. That’s its.
How can something so simple and basic have such powerful benefits?
It’s so simple, but something truly profound begins to happen both for baby and mother on many levels when skin to skin. One of the main magic ingredients is oxytocin – the hormone and neuropeptide associated with security, bonding and love – which is released in a rush during SSC.
But there is a lot more going on than just the cascading release of oxytocin. In fact, studies like this now reveal that it’s not just a temporary hormonal surge – but that the benefits are sustained into middle childhood! And if they are measurable even at that point, then we can surmise that SSC potentially plays a lasting role in a person’s life and who they become.
It’s not surprising when we remember that, biologically, we are animals. Mammals, to be precise. And though babies arrive into a modern world, their DNA isn’t modern. Their needs remain instinctual. Through skin to skin contact, we can communicate to our infants in a language that they can understand. The smell of our body, the warmth of our skin, the sound of our heartbeat, the feeling of our lips on their skin – these are things that translate into a sense of safety, security and love.
In fact, when mammal babies are separated from their mothers, there is a “separation distress call” – or crying – a mammalian reflex well-suited to calling the mother back to the young. So thinking about it anthropologically, it makes sense that a baby is calmer in the protection of the mother, and that her body provides the baby with the best information and environment in which to thrive. It will be many months until your baby begins to realize that s/he is a separate being. Even after my first child began to talk, people would ask him his name, and he would respond, “Mamma.” He knew how to say his name perfectly well! But it took him a bit longer to realize that we were not one and the same being. He now gives me parenting advice. Anytime his little brother cries, he’ll tell me, “Mamma you need to hold him.”
As Clarissa Pinkola Estes wrote, “The body remembers, the bones remember, the joints remember, even the little finger remembers. Memory is lodged in pictures and feelings in the cells themselves.”
Skin-to-skin is something that transcends culture and time. It connects us to every parent on the globe. It connects us to our ancient ancestors and to our future great great grandchildren.
Let’s look at the actual benefits now.
What are the known benefits of SSC for baby?
SSC helps infants adapt to their new environment in key neuro-physical ways. Whether a baby is premature or full-term, SSC is associated with many positive outcomes:
- the regulation of newborn’s body temperature, heart rate and respiration
- stabilizes blood sugar and supports overall metabolic adaptation
- lowers stress response (lowered cortisol)
- stimulates gastrointestinal health for pro-feeding behavior and better digestion
- better sleep
- less crying and easier to comfort
- a natural analgesic, reducing pain reaction to routine medical procedures
- the healthy colonization of the baby’s skin with the mother’s friendly bacteria, thus providing protection against infection
- more stable physiological functioning
- acceleration of infants’ responsiveness to others
- supports baby’s optimal brain development
What are the known benefits of SSC for mothers?
- lowers the risk of postpartum hemorrhaging
- stimulates the release of a hormone called prolactin, which stimulates milk production
- lowers the risk of postpartum depression
- leads to greater sensitivity and responsiveness to infants
- reduces maternal anxiety, helping those motherly instincts kick in faster
- not only supports the initiation of breastfeeding, but also the continuation of breastfeeding past the recommended 6 months
What about fathers?
In the case that the mother cannot offer SSC with the baby immediately following delivery, then the next best thing is the father’s chest. The baby receives many of the same benefits from the father, and the father receives a ton of benefits as well:
- stabilizes a baby’s body temperature to the exact same degree as with mother SSC
- significantly raises blood glucose levels (protection from cold) compared with babies who were left instead in an incubator
- less crying, easier to comfort during father SSC
- while infants receiving father SSC have been shown to start breastfeeding a bit later than when receiving mother SSC, they were significantly calmer and showed less signs of distress than infants who were placed in a cot instead of father SSC
- lowered stress for both baby and father (decreased cortisol, increased oxytocin)
- just as mother and baby begin to recognize each other’s unique scent, so can father and baby – and his scent can also be a great source of comfort and information for baby.
- stimulates the father’s caring behaviors and bonding, leading to greater sensitivity to the infant
- better cognitive development of the baby – same brain benefits
- promotes verbal interaction between infant and parent within minutes of the birth
- allows the father to begin to understand baby’s signals and become more responsive
How long does SSC work for?
SSC should be standard protocol for newborns of course. But the benefits don’t stop once you take your baby home! It remains beneficial well into toddlerhood. Even my 5-year old still loves curling up against my body. “You’re so warm, mama,” he always says.
Like everything else, the practice of skin-to-skin will evolve as your child grows.
Do you have an angsty teenager or pre-tween? Try giving them a back massage, or simply rub their feet. The very presence of your hands on their skin might do wonders.
There’s no doubt about it – cuddling truly is good for health!
Sources:
Give ‘Em Some Skin by Stanford Children’s Health
Father-infant skin-to-skin benefits babies, fathers and mothers (international)
Influence of immediate newborn care on infant adaptation to the environment
Skin-to-skin contact is analgesic in healthy newborns
Effectiveness of skin-to-skin contact versus care-as-usual in mothers and their full-term infants
And though I didn’t get much into the topic of SSC for prematurely born infants, I did get teary-eyed when I read this story: