I recently wrote a blog about attachment theory and the different personality styles that can develop from early childhood experiences.

This got me thinking about the pre-verbal worlds babies inhabit.

While they have at their disposal a communication system of their own with babbles and cries, I thought about how babies receive communicative messages rather than just how they put messages out. Sound and sight figure strongly (much has been written about a mother’s loving gaze into her child’s eyes and the oxytocin response it yields or what impact a ‘still, [emotionless] face’ can have on a baby), but touch is one of our earliest language inputs that communicate messages to us about what our bodies are and how they’re taken care of.

Mother.ly ran an article that specifically talks about this:

A survey of 125 full-term and premature newborns at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, found early, gentle displays of affection from parents and caregivers have lasting effects on how baby brains react to gentle touch. That means early exposure to hugs could help pre-term babies experience affection as pleasant rather than overwhelming while also stimulating positive brain responses.
…
The researchers were surprised to find that a preemie's perception of touch can be affected by early medical procedures (as they often receive pain medications). But the good news is that hugs can help counteract the negative experiences.

This points us to contemporary issues and the effect that touch deprivation has on children. AAMFT, the association I belong to as a therapist, spoke out against border separation of parents and children due to the attachment implications.

The Cut discussed the issue of border separation as follows:

Here’s how the calming power of touch works on a physiological level: Touch stimulates pressure receptors under the skin that carry signals to the vagus nerve, which connects the brain to the rest of the body. The vagus nerve, in turn, uses those signals to slow down the nervous system, lowering heart rate and blood pressure and curbing the activity of the stress hormone cortisol, an immune-system suppressant. Being touched also triggers a rush of the neurotransmitters serotonin, a lack of which has been linked to depression, and dopamine, which regulates pleasure.
When a person is deprived of touch, on the other hand, these things don’t happen: The vagus nerve doesn’t calm the body into lowering heart rate and blood pressure; cortisol, with its immune-destroying power, isn’t kept in check; and those neurotransmitters don’t kick in to regulate our mood and emotional state. If touch helps keep a person healthy, then lack of it — especially in cases of heightened trauma or suffering — can literally make them ill.
And over time, it all accumulates. While we don’t know exactly how long it takes for the effects of touch deprivation to manifest into something long-lasting, Field says she’s come across cases in her research where a child temporarily starved of their typical levels of touch — whether they had a parent away on a trip, or they were separated in school from a best friend they often cuddled with — began to show signs of depression within a few days.

Touch is instrumental to a baby’s well-being. And you can’t do it too much! Hold your babies and speak out about what’s happening at the border! Everyone deserves safety and security.

Nurture Your Newborn with Gentle Hugging