The Chemistry of Attachment

Bonding Matters. . .

The Chemistry of Attachment
by Linda F. Palmer, DC

Human babies are born helpless, needing to be entirely cared for and protected. Luckily, they are born with all the necessary tools and "instructions" to attain such care for themselves, and to become a loved and loving part of their family and society. The ingrained neural and hormonal interactions provided for parent and child to assist them in this process are among the most powerful in nature. The hormonal cues are clear and compelling and our instincts can provide us with all the appropriate responses. Without taking great efforts to avoid and ignore such urges, parents will naturally follow the advice of their neurons and hormones, nurturing their babies and maintaining physical closeness with them.

Once born, baby's hormonal control systems and brain synapses begin to permanently organize according to the human interactions she experiences. Unneeded brain receptors and neural pathways are disposed of, while those appropriate to the given environment are enhanced.

Oxytocin - a Bonding Hormone

Oxytocin is a chemical messenger released in the brain chiefly in response to social contact, but its release is especially pronounced with skin-to-skin contact. In addition to providing health benefits, this hormone-like substance promotes bonding patterns and creates desire for further contact with the individuals inciting its release.

When the process is uninterrupted, oxytocin is one of nature's chief tools for creating a mother. Roused by the high levels of estrogen ("female hormone") during pregnancy, the number of oxytocin receptors in the expecting mother's brain multiplies dramatically near the end of her pregnancy. This makes the new mother highly responsive to the presence of oxytocin. These receptors increase in the part of her brain that promotes maternal behaviors.

Oxytocin's first important surge is during labor. If a cesarean birth is necessary, allowing labor to occur first provides some of this bonding hormone surge (and helps ensure a final burst of antibodies for the baby through the placenta). Passage through the birth canal further heightens oxytocin levels in both mother and baby.

High oxytocin causes a mother to become familiar with the unique odor of her newborn infant, and once attracted to it, to prefer her own baby's odor above all others'. Baby is similarly imprinted on mother, deriving feelings of calmness and pain reduction along with mom. When the infant is born, he is already imprinted on the odor of his amniotic fluid. This odor imprint helps him find mother's nipple, which has a similar but slightly different odor. In the days following birth, the infant can be comforted by the odor of this fluid. Gradually over the next days, baby starts to prefer the odor of his mother's breast, but continued imprinting upon his mother is not food related. In fact, formula-fed infants are more attracted (in laboratory tests) to their mother's breast odor than to that of their formula, even two weeks after birth.

By influencing maternal behavior and stimulating milk "let down" (allowing milk to flow) during nursing, oxytocin helps make the first attempts at breastfeeding feel natural. Attempts at nursing during the initial hour after birth cause oxytocin to surge to exceptional levels in both mother and baby. Mothers who postpone nursing lose part of the ultimate hormone high provided for immediately after birth. Powerful initial imprinting for mother and baby is intended to occur chiefly so that mother and baby will be able to find and recognize each other in the hours and days after birth.

Yet a lifetime opportunity for bonding and love is not lost if this initial window is missed. Beyond birth, mother continues to produce elevated levels of oxytocin as a consequence of nursing and holding her infant, and the levels are based on the amount of such contact. This hormonal condition provides a sense of calm and well being. Oxytocin levels are higher in mothers who exclusively breastfeed than in those who use supplementary bottles. Under the early influence of oxytocin, nerve junctions in certain areas of mother's brain actually undergo reorganization, thereby making her maternal behaviors "hard-wired."

As long as contact with the infant remains, oxytocin causes mother to be more caring, to be more eager to please others, to become more sensitive to other's feelings, and to recognize nonverbal cues more readily. Continued nursing also enhances this effect. With high oxytocin, mother's priorities become altered and her brain no longer signals her to groom and adorn herself in order to obtain a mate, and thus a pregnancy. Now that the child has already been created, mom's grooming habits are directed toward baby. High oxytocin in the female has also been shown to promote preference for whatever male is present during its surges (one good reason for dad to hang around during and after the birth). Prolonged high oxytocin in mother, father, or baby also promotes lower blood pressure and reduced heart rate as well as certain kinds of artery repair, actually reducing lifelong risk of heart disease.

Although baby makes her own oxytocin in response to nursing, mother also transfers it to the infant in her milk. This provision serves to promote continuous relaxation and closeness for both mother and baby. A more variable release of oxytocin is seen in bottle-fed infants, but is definitely higher in an infant who is "bottle-nursed" in the parents' arms rather than with a propped bottle.

Persistent regular body contact and other nurturing acts by parents produce a constant, elevated level of oxytocin in the infant, which in turn provides a valuable reduction in the infant's stress-hormone responses. Multiple psychology studies have demonstrated that, depending on the practices of the parents, the resulting high or low level of oxytocin will control the permanent organization of the stress-handling portion of the baby's brain-promoting lasting "securely attached" or "insecure" characteristics in the adolescent and adult. Such insecure characteristics include anti-social behavior, aggression, difficulty forming lasting bonds with a mate, mental illness, and poor handling of stress.

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What Babies Really Need

Copyright (c) 2001 By Ingrid Bauer

As they contemplate the birth of a new baby, parents wonder exactly what it is they will need to buy--after all, there is so much new parenting paraphenalia available. Yet one of the obstacles that can get between us and a full experience of mothering or fathering is stuff. Stuff abounds in our culture, especially where babies and children are concerned.

As the importance of attachment and bonding emerges, manufacturers scurry to keep pace. Advertisers and entrepreneurs relish the market that exists among parents who are seeking the very best for their offspring. They create products that claim to ease the work of parenting and contribute to intimacy. These products--bottles, pacifiers, cribs, baby chairs and swings, stuffed animals and "blankies"---are often nothing more than meagre and unsatisfying replacements for the real thing.

The advertisements---"Shaped like real nipples", "Just like mother's heartbeat", "Soft as your touch"---play on the idea that you and your baby might do just as well, or even better, with these substitutes. Just recently, I saw an advertisement for a blanket that traps the mother's odour in its special fibres, so the baby can smell the mother's scent and feel less isolated when left alone. What a pitiful substitute for the real feeling of being held in loving arms and breathing in the warm scent of another living being.

It is in the immediate economic interests of all "mother replacement" manufacturers, and even many doctors, that women not fully embrace their power as mothers and optimum nurturers of their children. Yet increasingly women (and parents in general) are doing just that. Mothers are rediscovering breastfeeding by avoiding bottles. Parents are giving up cribs and joining the millions around the world who co-sleep in the family bed. They are learning that when babies are carried in-arms, instead of spending their day in plastic baby containers, crying is reduced and a strong bond of affection and trust develops. They are learning to listen to their children and their hearts, and to trust what they discover there.

The need for diapers hasn't been questioned until very recently. Yet diapers can become--both figuratively and literally--a layer between mother and child. Disposable diaper giants battle to create the thinnest, driest, most comfortable product, the one most like wearing no diaper at all. Yet actually going diaper-free is a concept they don't wish to contemplate. Slowly and surely, however, more parents are beginning to consider it. They are discovering that they can keep their babies clean and dry without relying on diapers. They are taking back their power and strengthening that precious and intimate connection with both the baby and themselves.

There is no adequate substitute for a mother's closeness at the beginning of a human life. She is essential and fundamental to her infant's optimal well being and is largely undervalued in our culture. Replacing her with something or someone else interferes not only with the baby's ability to bond, but also with her ability to be present to her baby. Fathers and other family and community members also play a vital role, of course, providing a strong support system for mother and baby.

Respecting and nurturing a mother and baby's entwined attachment takes a courageous and compassionate commitment in our culture. Our economic, political, and social conditions provide meagre support, even condemnation, for families who choose to respond to the primal needs of their most vulnerable members.

Yet the solutions lie, not in replacing the mother with unsatisfying substitutes, but in sharing information, support, and encouragement, and in rediscovering community. They lie in mindfully choosing and living those practices that strengthen the attachment and bring us closer to our children. They require valuing people over things, and relationships over products or outcomes. They ask that we be present to our babies' needs in the moment, and trust the convenience and sustainability of the bigger picture.

There are some things that might make parenting a baby easier and more pleasurable. A good sling, a few well-chosen and supportive books, soft blankets, and cosy cotton clothing. But there is only one thing your baby really needs: you. There is only one thing to do: be fully present. The greatest gift you can give your child is yourself: your body, your acceptance, your responsiveness, your time, and your energy. Nothing could be simpler or more challenging; more vulnerable or more empowering. Nothing could be more freeing, or health and life enhancing.

Ingrid Bauer lives with her partner and 3 children on an island on the West Coast of British Columbia, Canada.