Seeing and Touching

I have heard from mothers, both biological and adoptive, about the feeling of deep connection with their infant children through eye contact.

The skin and the brain both develop from the same embryonic tissue. We should think of the skin as an external brain, exquisitely sensitive to stimulation. When we stimulate the skin through touch, we stimulate brain development. In the infant, touch serves the same function as a mother bear's licking of her cub: it enhances immune function, it enlivens the bodily systems into action. Antibody production is increased, a life-long advantage conferred onto the baby. Too, touching increases the production of the growth hormone, the master hormone that regulates all endocrine functions of the body.

In the 13th century, Roman Emperor Frederich II conducted an experiment. He removed babies from their families and gave them over to nurses, who were instructed to take care of their basic needs: feeding them without holding them, bathing them without hugging them. He wanted to learn to learn what language children would speak if not exposed to a native tongue. These children in the experiment never heard speech, never heard a song or lullaby. What Emperor Frederich learned, however, had nothing to do with language. All the babies died.

In 1950, a group of psychoanalysts was commissioned by the United Nations to study the importance of the symbiotic phase of maternal love. As a result of the research conducted by psychoanalysts John Bowlby and Rene Spitz, we have precise information on the disastrous effects of the total absence of a symbiotic relationship. Their research informed us of a disease that had not yet been given a diagnostic label. The disease -- now called marasmus -- seemed to be a kind of love sickness, a withering away of the spirit and then the body due to a deprivation of maternal attention.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-g-goldberg-phd/from-symbiosis-to-separat_b_899511.html