As soon as a child is born, what he most needs is contact with the person who has kept him on his lap for 9 months , his mother. The establishment of the bond between mother and child is one of the most important processes for the newborn , and begins with the contact between the two from the very first moments after birth. This is bonding , the bond that defines the most intimate and natural relationship that can exist, that between a mother and her baby.
I was born preterm and urgently in the 70s. I was separated from my mom immediately while she was still asleep, placed in a thermal cradle, handled by nurses for days and I could only feel my mother’s hands and smell after more than 70 hours. For this reason, when they explained and showed us the importance of bonding at ISPEE school, I was deeply impressed.
The first few hours an infant spends with its mother are critical in the development of attachment .
I point out that it is almost useless to get into twisted thoughts if we have not been so lucky and adequately followed with our children that we can abandon ourselves to bonding without interference. The repair mechanisms, both of babies and mothers, are surprising. But it is really important that we talk more and more often about this culture of bonding and the importance of bonding also from an emotional and relational point of view.
“In the first minutes of life, the only need for a healthy infant is to be dried and wrapped in a warm towel, any other routine besides not being useful is an obstacle to bonding and therefore should be postponed “, so Dr. Alessandro Volta, he explains the profound urgency of bonding.
THERE ARE GESTURES AND ACTIONS THAT CAN BE POSTPONED: BONDING IS NOT.
Bonding must be practiced immediately and the reasons are also organic and linked to the hormonal cascade that affects both the mother and the child during labor and in the first minutes after childbirth. Oxytocin, for example, also called “love hormone”, reaches the highest concentrations in maternal blood after 30 minutes from birth, when the eyes of mother and baby finally cross. This promotes the expulsion of the placenta, supports breastfeeding and promotes falling in love between the mother and her baby .
That’s why the mother / child couple should never be disturbed at this stage: washing and measuring, in the absence of complications they can be postponed until later.
The first minutes of a child’s life are also the first minutes of a mother’s life . Both have enormous work to do: the infant, accustomed to being immersed in amniotic fluid must also deal with the force of gravity and must find the uterus in the mother’s arms; the mother must work out the detachment and understand what happened, now that the pain has finally passed and everything can be savored slowly.
