Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers strictly forbade young mothers to hold babies in their arms for a long time. Will get used to it! What are you going to do then, as you tear the child away from yourself?
Why such advice from elders should not be followed and how attachment is formed between mother and child in the first three months after childbirth, Woman’s Day told Tatiana Aptulaevapracticing psychologist, author of the bestselling book on pregnancy and preparation for childbirth “Mother and Child. Encyclopedia of Happy Motherhood ”and books about child development.
Tatiana Aptulaeva
– Once, on a distant August day, five years ago, returning from a walk, I clearly felt that the stroller, which for the second month I habitually rolled in parks for 2-3 hours every single day, is absolutely my own big belly. It just came off, and I swing it at arm’s length. And in it is a daughter of three weeks old. And I was overwhelmed by the confident feeling that my pregnancy is somehow miraculously continuing. It touched me, moved and amused me. But from the point of view of attachment theory, this feeling was psychologically absolutely accurate.
The fourth trimester of pregnancy is a great poetic metaphor for the first three months after birth. More prosaically, the same period is called the adaptation period – the time when both the mother and the newborn master and get used to a new way of interaction, communication, understanding and feeling each other no longer only at the level of internal bodily sensations.
From the very first moment after childbirth, the entire sensory system turns on completely, and the two begin to recognize each other and feel. Now they see, hear, touch each other, smell, warm, the baby tastes milk for the first time. The most amazing thing is that this communication and recognition takes place without a single word. Simply because the newborn does not have them yet.
In the first three months after the birth of a child, a woman experiences that amazing state when she feels a particularly close connection with him. With a harmonious perception of your pregnancy and motherhood, it is a natural strong desire to maintain a physical and emotional connection, expressing it in love and care. This deep need, full of tenderness and affection for the baby, contains completely practical tasks that are aimed at his harmonious, full-fledged physical and psychological development. If not one but …
The concept of the fourth trimester of pregnancy, which was first introduced by M.D. Harvey Karp, did not arise by accident. In the same way as more recently, just a few decades ago, babies have actually won back the opportunity to feed them with mother’s milk instead of artificial formula. The same is now happening with the return of the ability to form a basic attachment in the child, which is responsible for the feeling that he is always loved and the way he is. This is actually an open struggle and a counterbalance to a very old, but still persisting stereotype, which is given as a direct instruction to the mother: “Do not hold the child in your arms, you get used to it – you will spoil it!”
In Russia, this idea was kept as a generic value, for centuries until very recent Soviet times. Of course, why should mommy hold the baby in her arms when she, as a young mistress in combination, was supposed to do the housework, serving all family members, from husband to mother-in-law?
Why sit on maternity leave when you need to build great communism? And so she gave birth – back in line. To the machine, garden, stove, rocker, morning and evening milking.
The older generation, which traditionally perceived the daughter-in-law as a working resource for a large household, it was under such a plausible educational pretext that they often separated her from the baby too early, again returning her to her usual household work …
The same thing happened in the Soviet Union, when every woman was a state property. Machine tools are more important than babies. It was believed that the necessary minimum of physical care for the child was sufficient, and in this sense, the attitude towards him was actually like an adult.
Such an approach violated the natural formation of the child’s attachment to the mother, if not pathologically, then in any case severely broke her, forcing her to accept distorted surrogates.
The mother, who could not fully realize the natural need to take care of the baby, this was expressed in the form of feelings of guilt and pity, cut off and unexpressed emotions of tenderness and love, which were not accepted to express openly. Hence the idea of female love as pity appeared, which spread not only in love for a child, but also for a man.
In a child, a violation of the formation of attachment was expressed in apathy, distrust of the world, its insecurity, high anxiety, and inability to develop in general. Baby houses, where children lay motionless for days on end in tight diapers, is a confirmation of this. If the home child was lucky, he ended up in the arms of a caring grandmother-great-grandmother. And if not, then oh.
I still remember my shock when I asked my mother why she was breastfed so little, and she replied: “Because then haymaking began.” My mother was born on June 12 …
The first and simplest task of this nature-formed attachment to the infant is to help him survive physically. A human infant is born completely unadapted to survive alone. Unlike baby animals, he cannot get up and stomp on his legs a few minutes after giving birth, as rabbits or tiger cubs do, which, as soon as they are born, are almost immediately ready to gallop next to their mother.
This inability to live independently is expressed in the immaturity of the vital systems of the newborn’s body – the gastrointestinal tract, the temperature regime of the body, the maturation of the brain, and the lack of coordination of bodily movements.
He has only primary rudimentary reflexes, which help in the first months of life to facilitate mastering in a new world for him.
The search reflex helps to find the breast, sucking and swallowing – to properly grasp the mother’s nipple and drink milk, the grasping reflex – to cling tightly with your fingers to your mother’s hand. My book “I am a mother for the first year” will help you to understand the connection between mother and child even more.
And when we talk about the first three months of motherhood as the fourth trimester of pregnancy, this very well and clearly explains the psychological meaning of this period. After all, the expectation of a child is also traditionally perceived as a very anxious period in the life of a woman and the whole family. The people around them treat the expectant mother with great attention, they protect her from unnecessary worries, hard physical work, calmly relate to any whims.
Such care, which is actually caring about the future baby, allows a woman to tune in to her pregnancy and perceive it, get pleasure from her condition, calmly endure and give birth normally. And in such a surrounding aura of love, it is much easier for the expectant mother to form attachment to her child even before his birth.
Perceiving the first months of a child’s life as still the final trimester of pregnancy, it is much easier for everyone, both the mother and the family, to maintain the atmosphere of the previous nine months. This is because this process of forming a secure attachment is a two-way process, just like during pregnancy.
A calm, caring mother is able to give a feeling of love to the baby, and he, being filled with it, pleases her first with his good health, and then with the first smiles, laughter, conscious reactions and, in fact, constant confirmations that she is a good mother.
Preserving and maintaining is important. All protective reflexes with which a child is born speak of its fragility. Too bright light makes him close his eyes, too loud a sound – to flinch and throw his arms to the side. He is not yet ready to withstand too strong stimuli and stimuli, so the baby needs peace and quiet. And only gradually, week after week, month after month, the baby gets used to louder sounds and light. Therefore, it is in the first three months that it is important for mom to help him smoothly, slowly, without haste to adapt to this external world into which he came.
But for the mother herself, this peace and quiet is also important in the same way as she needed it during pregnancy. Because only in such an environment is she able to hear well the slightest signals of the newborn when he begins to groan or sniff from the slightest inconvenience. This allows her to learn to recognize the signals of the baby – whether he grunts from wet diapers or from the fact that he is hungry and begs for a breast. In such an atmosphere of the fourth trimester of pregnancy, the mother perfectly tunes in to the baby, quickly learns to understand him, recognize the very first signals, and most often the child of such a mother cries very rarely. Well, simply because they have a complete understanding.
The concept of the final trimester of pregnancy also includes the need to carry the baby outside of the mother’s body in the literal sense, as if reminding him at this time of his previous life inside. But not at the expense of the reserves of the woman’s reproductive system: the placenta, uterus, amniotic fluid. And in constant physical contact, filled with maternal love, which is expressed in the simplest and most concrete actions – hugs, kisses, gentle cooing. Here, to help you, I recommend one of my latest books, 365 Ideas for Spending Time with Your Child in the First Year.
The fundamental difference between an adult and a newborn is that the baby’s mother’s attention and physical care is needed almost round the clock.
Time will pass, and this vital addiction after the first three months will gradually begin to move to a qualitatively new level. It consists in the fact that all physical sensations and feelings of pleasure or displeasure will begin to transform into more conscious reactions – positive or negative emotions. So the baby turns from a being filled with vague mental sensations into a little man who understands and knows how to express emotions. And this ability not least depends on the mother’s ability to feel and be aware of her experiences.
The vital importance of attachment during this period is also expressed in the fact that the child receives the first experience of accepting himself as he is, without evaluations and judgments. It is a fundamental feeling that he is loved always and in any state and mood – in dirty or clean diapers, screaming or sleeping, crying or smiling.
This sensation will then be enough for a growing child to develop and overcome life’s difficulties. This will appear later, but the mother forms the foundation of such an optimistic and purposeful self-confident child already in his first months.
The mother carries the baby out, helping all his vital systems to mature to normal independent functioning. Embrace your arms, supporting the feeling of the elastic walls of the uterus. Pressing to the chest, it helps to hear the familiar close and soothing heartbeat again. Putting it on your naked belly, it allows you to feel the maximum physical closeness, warmth and smell of your body. Gently and quietly cooing, he lets you hear almost the same sounds of his voice as he heard them while in the womb.
This is how love and maternal care develop millions of neurons in the newborn’s brain, without which they remain unused.
Hugs, kisses, tenderness for a child are like rain and sun for flowers. When he receives them, he grows easily, quickly and happily. Forming a reliable emotionality, attachment, or, in other words, giving him her love and teaching him to love himself, mom not only helps him to survive physically, but gives him a huge chance to fully realize his full potential, talents and feel happy.