Early Years Bulletin
the process of associating faces, smells, and sounds with particular people in his family. After the birth of her first child, Candice joined a “New Moms” group. She loved the socialization aspect for the breastfeeding mothers and babies. She hopes to find a similar support system but none of the moms from that group have newborns at this time. Candice remembers seeing a young mother walking around the neighborhood and decides to ask if she would be interested in getting together. They begin to visit each other often and enjoy the friendship right away. • Singing Skin-to-Skin Contact Throughout the day, Candice and her husband Jack take brief turns holding their nearly naked, diapered infant chest down on their own bare chests in a slightly reclined chair. Many veteran parents have experienced how skin-to-skin contact increases bonding, trust, and the release of the stress-reducing hormone, oxytocin, for them and their baby (Gianaros & O’Connor, 2011). This peaceful practice helps Grayson improve his regulation of sleep and periods of wakefulness (Baker-Rush, 2016). While Candice sits with Grayson, she sings to him, which activates auditory and sensory-motor regions, similar to a baby bird responding to a mother bird’s song (Prather, Okanoya, & Bolhuis, 2017). She hopes to pass on traditional songs as well as special songs that she plans to dedicate to him. They are bonding and after repeated attempts with this activity, Grayson begins to sleep better and Candice feels less stressed (Persico et al., 2017).
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Summer 2018
Touch establishes powerful physical and emotional connections between infant and caregiver (Muir, 2002). Among the first to document this phenomenon in research was a naturalistic, longitudinal study in which mothers who respond promptly with close physical contact to newborns’ cries were more likely to have children who cried less often and for less time (Bell & Ainsworth, 1972). Candice understands that early bonding during the first few weeks can contribute to Grayson’s positive behavior development (Fuchs, Möhler, Reck, Resch, & Kaess, 2016). Skin-to-skin contact is a natural behavior technique that begins right after childbirth and aids in parent bonding and infant calming (Baker-Rush, 2016), and may be continued for the coming weeks. If the room is cool, the baby should be lightly covered. • Phoneme Faces Candice’s mother, Brenda, enjoys spending quality time with Grayson. She places a blanket on her legs and rests Grayson facing toward her. She copies Grayson’s lip movements. She does this because she understands that mirroring a newborn’s facial expressions is associated with the newborn’s ability to mirror other social expressions by 9 months of age (Rayson, Bonaiuto, Ferrari, & Murray, 2017). Once her activities gain his attention, she starts saying the phonetic sounds of the alphabet with exaggerated facial expressions. Grayson stares at her lips. She makes the sounds while holding him no more than her arms’ distance from her face. She