As doulas, our role is to support families during pregnancy, birth, and in the postpartum period. Part of that support is providing evidence-based education and support for families. One important part of early infant development is early touch with caregivers.
Early touch plays a role in infant brain development. In fact, researchers from Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Ohio, measured the brain responses of 125 infants. They looked at premature and full-term infants. They found that a baby’s earliest experiences of touch impacted how their brains developed.
Educating parents about healthy and positive touch is a great way to support families in the early postpartum period.
Touch and Infant Brain Development
It is sometimes said that touch is the first language. Babies explore much of their world in a tactile way. Everything they feel is new and aids in sensory maturation. The more positive early touch a baby receives, the better their brain develops a positive association with touch.
For healthy, full-term infants who do not have a need for medical procedures, most of their early touches are gentle and positive. Healthy brain development shows a response to gentle touch. For infants with medical needs, including premature babies, a lot of their early touch involves medical procedures which may not be gentle. Researchers found that these infants had less of a brain response to gentle touch.
Nathalie Maitre of Nationwide Children’s Hospital and Vanderbilt University Medical Center said, “Making sure that preterm babies receive positive, supportive touch such as skin-to-skin care by parents is essential to help their brains respond to gentle touch in ways similar to those of babies who experienced an entire pregnancy inside their mother’s womb. When parents cannot do this, hospitals may want to consider occupational and physical therapists to provide a carefully planned touch experience, sometimes missing from a hospital setting.”
This means that parents and caregivers could impact their baby’s brain development and sensory processing. Whether a baby does or does not have medical procedures, we can help encourage parents to use positive and frequent touch to aid in their baby’s development.
How is Infant Brain Response Measured?
As doulas, many of us believe in and trust the physiological process of birth and early postpartum. We know that birth is a complex hormonal process but one that is innate and often unfolds in a normal physiological process. In a healthy, undisturbed birth, baby often goes straight from womb to the parent’s chest, and breastfeeding initiation often begins within the first hour.
After that, baby spends up to 16 hours a day suckling to encourage mature milk to come in and build a steady supply. Many babies then feed at least ever 1.5-3 hours throughout the day the duration of their breastfeeding journey. This naturally exposes most infants to lots of frequent, positive touch.
That said, we all know that birth does not always go as planned. Medical interventions are sometimes desired, they are sometimes needed, and not every baby is healthy. We also know that breastfeeding does not always go as planned. So, while we trust and know that normal physiological birth models the human need and benefit of touch, we know that does not always occur.
The Results
Science then provides us with clear data to help us understand how to overcome any difficulties which could arise when there is not a physiological transition from womb to gentle touch. Science is an important tool in helping us understand physiology.
Researchers looked at the 125 babies born from 24 to 36 weeks and full-term infants born at 38 to 42 weeks. Before the babies were discharged from the hospital, they used a soft EEG net to measure the babies’ brain responses to a puff of air compared to a “fake” puff. The preterm infants were less likely to have a response to the puff.
However, they also found that the preterm infants who had frequent gentle touch and contact with their parents were more likely to have a response to the gentle touch. Parents truly help their baby develop.
In the words of the researchers, “Our results shed crucial insights into the mechanisms through which common early perinatal experiences may shape the somatosensory scaffolding of later perceptual, cognitive, and social development.”
What Does This Mean For Doulas?
In layman’s terms, early and frequent gentle touch is ideal for infant brain development. As doulas, we can help parents with full-term and preterm infants understand the importance of frequent, gentle, touch. Whether through skin-to-skin, breastfeeding, bath time, infant massage, etc., we can educate them on many ways to connect with their babies.
Not already a doula, but you want to help families? Get started today! You can help families understand infant brain development. Families are ready to learn! Are you ready to help?
Author: Aliza Juliette Bancoff
Aliza Juliette Bancoff is a well-known doula and doula trainer who has been providing doula services to families for over a decade. She is the founder of Main Line Doulas, a doula group providing doula support in the great Philadelphia area for the last decade, the International Doula Institute, which provides online doula training and lactation training and certification programs and the International Breastfeeding Institute which provides lactation training and certification. She is the co-founder of United Birth, a company devoted to increasing access to doulas across the country to make the perinatal time safer both physically and emotionally. “Every birthing person deserves access to quality doula support. And we are working to make that a reality across the country. The work we are doing to get doulas to every birthing person will decrease the black infant and maternal mortality rate significantly by 2030.” Says Bancoff. Aliza is known for her compassionate and empowering approach to doula work, and she has been featured in numerous media outlets, including United Nations Maternal Health Report, Parent Magazine, CafeMom, theBump and many more. Aliza's journey into doula work began when she gave birth to her first child and felt a strong calling...