One day
my general practitioner told me that carried children are neurologically
different than children who are not carried which means they are molecularly
different. I was fascinated so I started to read everything I could
find about carrying.
I have noted some of the things I have
read about carrying with references when possible.
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Anthropologists are unanamous; Baby carryers are
the first tools ever invented by man. Before the hammer, fire or wheel.
As much as breastfeeding, carrying has assured the survival of our
species. (The Prehistory of Sex Timothy Taylor. Bantam Books.)
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Humans are born 9 months premature. The average
lifespan of most mamals on the planet is a lot shorter than that
of humans. Rhodents live for less than 10 years, dogs live about
10 years, Horses live about 25-30 years. Humans live to about 85
years so relatively should be born after about 18 months gestation.
The oversized brain makes us impossible to get through the birth
canal after about 9 months although we are unfinished. Like the kangaroo
we are born in a foetal stage. For optimum neurological and biological
development our biological need is to latch on to our mother’s
breast in a pocket for about 9 more months. Other mamals are ready
to consume other foods than their mother’s milk and
walk within several hours of weeks of birth.
(Touching, the Human Significance of the Skin : Montagu, plus Boris
Cyrulnik.)
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As soon as the umbilical cord is cut human babies
need almost continual contact to ensure primitive confidance. (the
Emotional Life of the toddler : Aleiciea Fleiberman. M.D. and
Touching, the Human Significance of the Skin : Montagu)
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Humans are born with primitive needs which are
really an archaic fear of being left alone.
(Touching, the Human Significance of the Skin : Montagu)
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The earlier the mother infant separation, the
greater the anxiety is as if imprinted in humans. A kind of background
anxiety sets in.
(Touching, the Human Significance of the Skin : Montagu)
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Babys need movement, contact and a human voice
to develop primitive confidence.
(Touching, the Human Significance of the Skin : Montagu)
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A study on 49 illiterate societies conclude that
where carrying, contact and touching occurs in great frequency and
high levels, the levels of aggression are the lowest. Comparatively,
in the societies where carrying, contact and touching is infrequent
and uncommon, levels of aggression are high and common. (Prescott & Wallace, NICHD & University
of California Medical school. U.S.A. ref: Good Nights. Dr. J. Gordon.)
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With primitive confidence a baby’s energy
can be used to develop the brain. Optimal neurological connections
are made.
(Touching, the Human Significance of the Skin : Montagu)
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When baby monkeys were separated from their mothers,
the cortisole level was mesured and found to be extremely high. The
babies were repeatedly left alone, and allowed to cry for their mothers
until they fell asleep. When the babies stopped crying for their
mothers their cortisole levels were measured again and found to be
just as high as when they had cried for their mothers, even after
80 separations. (Good Nights: J. Gordon. Study: Coe et al 1985)
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High levels of cortisole weaken the immune system. Psychiatric research
conclude that adults and teenagers susceptible to depression, antisocial
behaviour, alcohol, drug abuse and repetetive illnesses were babies
that were left to cry alone. (David Servan-Schreiber PHD, Pittsburgh
School of Medecine.) In separate studies, patients who had been left
alone to cry as babies were found to be more susceptible to mental
illness and have more difficulty recouperating after a stressful event.
(Michael L. Commons PHD Harvard University, Lecturer in Psychiatry.)
Read: Good Nights, Dr. Jay Gordon p. 97.
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The earlier the skin stimulation;
stroking, carrying, the higher the immunity levels. What worries a baby
is silence, lack of movement, and solitude. This stress is otherwise
known as an archaic fear of being left alone to die.
Birch, Lorraine L Roth, Jay S Rosenblath. Harry Harlow, M.K. Harlow,
E.W. Hansen. Study; The maternal affecctional system of rhesus monkeys.
New York, Wiley 1963.
(Touching, the Human Significance of the Skin : Montagu)
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In Bogota, Columbia, the premature born
mortality rate was above 70%. In part because of unreliable electricity
but mostly because mothers abandonned their premies. With the introduction
of Kangaroo Care, the rate dropped to 30%. In the U.S. with incubator
care alone the rate stayed at 30%. Kangaroo Care is today practiced
on a 24/24 skin to skin basis. Parents leave the maternities with
their premies in continuous Kangaroo Care only days after the birth.
Today the incubators are used to heat laundry. (“Kangaroo Care”:
Susan Ludlow)
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A child who has been carried will have better
digestion, fewer skin problems, fewer colics, greater memorisation
and learning capacities, better frustration tolerance, better integration
capacities, more creativity. On average children carried walk earlier.
(Touching, the Human Significance of the Skin : Montagu)
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A carried child will have a higher I.Q. greater
immunities, better intestinal developpment, and they sleep better.
They will have better vision, sense of smell, balance, muscle tone
and infecions are rarer. (Touching, the Human Significance of the
Skin : Montagu.)
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One study showed a 48% reduction in daytime crying and a 51% reduction
in nighttime crying. (Paediatrics 1996)
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Children who were little touched, little held,
have brains that can be up to 30% smaller than other children their
age. (Touching, the Human Significance of the Skin : Montagu)
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Carried premature babies have deeper sleeps,
gain wieght faster, infections are rarer, cry less and their energy
is better conserved. The interrupted gestation period can be prolonged
when being carried skin to skin. (“Kangaroo Care”: Susan
Ludlow)
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Psychomotor developpment is more rapid and harmonious
in carried babies. (Touching, the Human Significance of the Skin)
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After 8 weeks of gestation, the foetus has skin and can feel pression
throught the uterus wall. (Touching, the Human Significance of
the Skin. Montagu.)
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At 8 months of gestion the foetus is entirely
envelopped in the uterus, every centimetre of its skin is being touched
and massaged by the utuerus wall. This is known as "Flesh Nirvana".
(Touching, the Human Significance of the Skin)
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Until about 9 months of life extra-uterine, a
human baby believes itself to be a physical part of its mother. (Touching,
the Human Significance of the Skin.)
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Hormonal secretions in babies change depending
on the expression of their mother. (Dr. Janov: The Biology of Love).
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Average crying in carrying socities is 5 minutes
a day. Average crying in N.A. is 2 hours per day. (The Family Bed;
Tine Thevanin)
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Separation at birth is an occidental phenomenum
as is prolonged crying. (The Family Bed; Tine Thevanin)
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Babies in Uganda creep on their bellies on average
at the age of 5-7 weeks and can pick up an object while running at
the age of 5-7 months. A N. A. child creeps at between 7-8 months
and can pick up an object while running between 15 and 18 months.
Marcelle Geber. (maternage.free.fr/la_peau-au-commencement.htm)
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Hip
dislocation is principally an occidental phenomenum most common
in intense stroller use societies. It is also a result of long hours
spent lying on the back or front. (maternage.free.fr/portage_hanches.htm)
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A
carried baby or child can participate in family life and live
every new event in total security.
(E Bonnet, E Kirkilionis, perinatalite.chez.tiscali.fr/portage.htm)
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Strollers
and Perambulaters were commercialised in the middle of the 19th
century and were used to relieve servants of back pain. (Three in
a Bed. Deborah Jackson)
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Separation at birth is an occidental phenomenum
as is prolonged crying. (The Family Bed; Tine Thevanin)
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In Baltimore in 1938 infant mortality rate was
35% until the prenatal education programme included carrying. The
rate went down to 10%. (Touching, the Human Significance of the Skin.
Montagu.)
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In the early 1900s in the U.S. orphanges lost
babies at the rate of 60%- 100% at the height of the “Behaviourist
mouvement”.
When a doctor implemented a 3 times a day “holding” programme,
the mortality rate went down to 10%. (Touching, the Human
Significance of the Skin).
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Correct carrying is a method for
prevention of hip problems and also used as treatment. In
fact the Paediatric plaster casts were developped by paediatricians
when they realised that hip displacement is almost inexistant
in carrying societies. (maternage.free.fr/portage_hanches.htm.
Plus; E Bonnet Paediatrician and E Kirkilionis)
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Experiences by Dr. Harry
Harlow who had the hypothesis that babies want to cling to their
mothers only to have 24/24 access to milk discovered; When separating
baby monkeys from their mothers and leaving them in a cage with
a "surrogate" mother
consisting of two wire grids. One grid was covered with soft fur
and had a lightbulb behind it, supplying heat. The second "surrogate" mother
in the cage was a wire grid supplying milk 24/24. The baby monkeys
clung to the warmed cloth covered "surrogate" mother
for the vast majority of time in the cage, seldomly straying
from it. In some cases, the baby monkeys went for upto
17 hours without feeding in order to cling to the heated
grid. Other findings from this study show that the earlier
the babies were separated from their mothers the more
difficult re-integration in their social group was. Most
monkeys never fully re-integrated. The few female monkeys
that did manage to copulate abandoned their babies at
birth or soon after. (Touching, the Human Significance
of the Skin: Harlow Experiments)
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Franz II of Germany carried out experiments
of his own. He wanted to know what language a child would speak if
never spoken to. He bought babies and entrusted their care to nurses
who were instructed to never speak to their tiny charges or touch
them in an agreeable manner. We will never know the answer to the
question becaus all the babies in this experiment died. (Touching,
the Human Significance of the Skin.)
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Why is separation at birth a common practice in occidental
society ? We can thank an american Dr. who in the 1940s, at the
height of the behaviourist movement, decided that mothers would
be separated from their babies at birth and allowed to hold them
in their arms and attempt to breastfeed them for a 20- 30 minute
period once every 4 hours. In between these brief moments, the
babies were allowed to cry their desperation in vast nurseries.
(Touching, the Human Significance of the Skin. )
Post natale depression was rampant and psychology is a vast inudustry
today. (authour's note)
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SIDS is almost inexistant in societies that share
sleep. (Michel Odent). Between 75% and 90% of victims of SIDS are
isolated sleepers at night. (Authour’s note)
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Why are such impractical contraptions
so popular today despite such active lifestyles ? All new parents
want "the
best" for
their children but are rarely faced with information or studies.
Parents are left with is advertising. The goal of advertising
is to convince the potential client that the best sacrifice they
can possibly make for their baby is buying whatever equipment
they are paid to sell. Innocent parents with apparently no choice
become customers and their babies are the loosers in the trade.
Stress becomes an accepted aspect of daily life. "the affliction
of the century". (Author’s note.)
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Advising a parent to
allow their baby to cry alone, destroys any confidence a parent
may have been able to develop. Carrying gives a parent the ability
to console and soothe a baby even if they can't rectify or heal
a problem. Carrying reinforces parental confidance and family
bonding. Parents must learn early to know the difference between advice
and information in order to build confidence.
(Rita Messmer Studer. maternage.free.fr/portons_nos_bebes.htm)
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One of
the founders of destructive advice ?
In 1892 in the United States, a nursing school educator published
a textbook emphasised that "a baby should never be rocked
nor hushed on a nurse's neck". This advice was dispatched
accordingly to new mothers as well.
In another vastly popular textbook written by a man who
had neither given birth nor breastfed a single baby, a
paediatrician, Dr. Luther Emmett Holt, wrote in spite of
the glaring facts of life "To
induce sleep, rocking and all other habits of this sort are useless
and may be harmful. I have known of an instance where the habit
of rocking during sleep was continued until the child was two years
old; the moment the rocking stopped the infant would awake." In
1894 Holt published another popular guide called "The Care
and Feeding of Children: A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and
Children's Nurses". Regarding the question of rocking Holt
replied in his guide; "Rocking is by no means necessary. It
is a habit easily acquired, but hard to break and a very useless
and sometimes injurious one." In 1916 Holt revised his guide,
adding; "A crib should be one that does not rock, in
order that the unnecessary and vicious practice may not be
carried on."
The use of the word "vicious" had obvious repercussions
on many generations of mothers and babies to follow. Dr Holt
encouraged scheduled breast feeding and the use of the bottle.
By 1935 Dr Holt's book was in its 15th edition. (P 148 -
149 Touching, the Human Significance of the Skin).
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Nasa researchers among others conclude that one
of the causes of osteoporosis is “the lack of weight bearing on long bones”.
(afpafitness.com/articles/milkdoc.htm)
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Parental bonding is made easier,
especially following a medicalised or traumatic birth or in the
case of separation. (“Kangaroo
Care”; Susan Ludlow.)
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In a study on plastic baby
carriers vs fabric baby carriers mothers were distributed carriers
at birth. When their babies were 13 months old the mother child
attachment was tested and found to be solid in 41% of the plastic
seat carried babies and 83% of the fabric carried babies. (The
Lancet 1987)
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Observers note that no other mammal on the
planet takes care of its young during the day and not at night.
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Transport in cloth slings is the least
costly mode of transport, the most practical, answers to
parent and child's need for contact and frequent feeding
while on the go and is the only method that reduces medical
costs.
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The more solid the mother/child bond, the
more rapidly the child is ready to create relationships with
other people. (Touching, the Human Significance of the Skin)
Carrying reinforces parental confidence. Even when an affliction
is unidendifiable, carrying provides the parents with a
means to console, comfort and sooth a child. (Kangaroo Care :
Susand Ludlow)
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To impose isolated sleeping on a baby,
with no possibility of hearing the breathing of his parents
unable to smell his mothers scent is a form of violence.
This violence is often defended in the name of an adult desire
for “peace”.
Early imposed mother/ infant separation does not help a child
become independant however does increase fear of abandonnement
and reinforce co-dependance. Independance is built on feelings
of security. (Au coeur des émotions de l’enfant.
Isabelle Filliozat).
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Oedipus. Parents are often warned that
sleeping with their babies or children is morally unhealthy, citing for proof,
the story of Oedipus. The point of the Oedipus
story that is so clearly overlooked is that Oedipus was abandonned at birth
by his mother. He was unable to bond with his mother. Thus an incestuous relationship
in adulthood was possible. For more information
on incest read; Boris Cyrulnik.
