The Plague of Mothers Not Holding Their Babies
The more I am in this work, the more I see an epidemic forming up around us. Mothers, more and more, are not holding their babies. They are making “funny” Instagrams about how annoying and clingy their newborns are. They are buying every gizmo and gadget to avoid holding their baby. We are absolutely accosted with the lie that you should not sleep next to your baby. And who is paying the ultimate price? Truthfully, its everyone.
Mothers who go against their biological design to hold their baby because of programming and modern belief systems may not be able to connect their crippling anxiety and worry to the fact that they refuse to hold their babies, but it is absolutely affecting them. Anytime we go against what our bodies are designed to do, we cannot expect it to not cause some sort of bodily reaction. And the shocking numbers of maternal anxiety and postpartum depression are showing us just that - we are NOT connected anymore. And some people want to blame society and bad education for this, but I just cannot help but feel like we also need to take responsibility as women. It’s not a male pediatricians job to tell us how and how to not care for our babies. In fact, I am horrified by the number of women who tell me that their peds told them not to comfort their baby at night - only to find out its a MALE pediatrician. That’s going to be a no for me.
Babies are another obvious victim of this crime - and I do believe it is criminal at this point. Babies. Completely helpless. The least developed at birth of any mammal. Then they are being labeled with colic or worse just “bad baby.” Meanwhile, their need for safety and security is just as important in their body as their need for food and shelter. When we deprive them of that what could we possibly expect other than a complete disaster?
Which brings me to the next victim - society. Yes, we as a society are seeing the ramifications of decades of inappropriate sleep training and lack of responsiveness to our infants. Unfortunately, it is manifesting in things like teenage mental health disorders, cutting, suicide and more. Think that’s a stretch? During our formative years as babies and toddlers, not only are we developing physically, but also emotionally and intellectually. We are building new neuropathways in the brain every single day. When a baby cries alone, abandoned, in their room, they create neuropathways of neglect and being unsafe. This develops into anxiety. Not only that, think of the strain it puts on the relationship between mother and child. How often do we hear that teenagers hate their mothers? Have we always hated our mothers as teens? Or is it new in response to the lack of love and affection and proper attachment we should be receiving as children?
One cannot help but wonder how much worse it is going to get. With big business that profit off of the separation between mother and child, I fear it will only get worse. My heart feels so much hope for the small revolution of attentive and affectionate mothers coming up recently. Moms who say, “I will go get my baby every time they cry” or better yet “they will live with me next to my body until they are more independent.” This is the only solution. For mothers and for their babies, if we want to rectify the damage that has been done, we must continue on holding our babies. No matter what anyone else says.
