How Important Is Physical Contact with Your Infant?

Question: How Important Is Physical Contact with Your Infant?

Asked by saggaaaaaarrrrr to Gioia, Iain, Jo, Leo, Mariam on 16 Jun 2010 in Categories: About.
- Gioia Cherubini answered on 16 Jun 2010:
  
  It seems to be extremely important, not only for humans, but also for animals. There are even experiments with rats showing that a mum-rat licking (the form of cuddle for rats) its baby-rat ensures that the rat kid will grow up being less stressed!
  So cuddles are important to grow up as a serene, confident, better able to cope with stress adult.
  
  That is a very interesting question, may I ask you why did you want to know this?
- Joanna Watson answered on 16 Jun 2010:
  
  I don’t have any children, but I think that physical contact with babies is really important to make them feel safe and loved.
- Mariam Orme answered on 16 Jun 2010:
  
  I’m afraid I don’t really know. Some people say that it’s important for making a strong bond between child and parent, but I’m not sure if there’s really good evidence for that.
- Leo Garcia answered on 16 Jun 2010:
  
  I don’t have a baby and this isn’t something I’ve ever studied but I’ve read that studies show that children raised in orphanages (who don’t get as much physical contact as children raised with their families) have different levels of hormones for controlling emotions to children raised in homes. It’s a really interesting question and difficult for scientists to study as there are so many different factors influencing how children develop.
  
  Here is an interesting article from Scientific American that might answer your question further:
  http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=infant-touch

Question: How Important Is Physical Contact with Your Infant?

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