Friday, March 24, 2017

A Brilliant Idea

A hospital back East has just come up with an idea to save and change lives; an idea so simple it is brilliant. They have founded the Cuddlers Club where people volunteer to cuddle babies, kiss and caress them while the mother is gone. They are first trained on what and how to do it and then they are given a baby to hold and sing to. It aids general development, general health, and enhanced brain development. Newborns need all this immediately in life, not years later. Isn’t it ten times more valuable then letting babies rot alone in a hospital bed? Even at our age, wouldn’t we want comfort and company when we go to hospital?  Why not a baby who is first learning to react to others and to feel their love and comfort. Above all, he senses and feels he is not alone and abandoned. How else could he react?



 
I have seen so many patients who relive being very young and left along in a hospital and they are terrified, to say nothing of SUDDEN DEATH SYNDROME, where babies die from fright on being abandoned, left in the dark without human succor, feeling isolated with no help anywhere. Why can’t we understand their fright when they are just coming into a new world and have no idea what that world is about? They cannot ask for help but they can feel terribly frightened.  They have no words to express themselves; and since we live in a world of language, it is beyond our comprehension.     

There is a way to give them a primitive language which I shall discuss elsewhere but their needs are for closeness and physical reassurance. A smiling soft face and voice. They need love in the language they speak; holding, touch and kisses. They need protection and when they do not get it, we find the beginning of an imprint of never feeling safe. It is a basic low level terror that we do not see but the child cries all of the time, is chronically timid and skittish. His first reaction is to withdraw, not see out and approach. He is imprinted with passivity and lethargy. He cannot smile fully because it is layered over with terror. Remember, there is a critical period when imprints take hold because the need is at is asymptote. The need for caress above all. Caresses years later through compulsive sex won’t fill the bill. It is far too late but the need lingers on and dogs us all of our lives. Is he a sex addict? No.  He is a need addict where lack of fulfillment is a constant reminder of what is missing. I have seen patients who are compulsive sexers. One woman got high blood pressure when she could not have sex. Compulsive anything informs us of what has gone missing early on. Even the search of fame and adoration can begin very early on when the child was not cuddled and adored; at age thirty he needs it desperately. And he gets it symbolically from applause. But it is symbolic so never fulfilling and then he needs it more and more. Now add to this indifferent cold parents who never touched the child, never cherished him, and were never physically close to him. The need is compounded and becomes more importuning. He now brags and makes himself important because the parents never could. He is trailed by his exploits that he has invented where he is the best, most talented and adored; trapped by  figments of his imagination... They Love Me. 
 
All this the hospital knows to avoid. Bravo, bravo to them. They are setting the stage for normal healthy children.  Who could do better?  The babies get physical care but too often what is neglected is their emotional life. Some hospitals have figured it out and what is more they give a chance for women who have lost their baby to again love a child. Wonderful.  
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8 comments:

  1. PaulMarch 24, 2017 at 4:06 PM

    Hi Art,

    I cannot begin to express in words, even here, how relevant this is to me and also because it's a generational thing going back to my parents and grandparents and forward to my son. There was once a theory that babies should not be held. . . Put into boxes even.

    I am so trapped in my box. . .

    Paul G.

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  2. beachcoast7March 25, 2017 at 5:02 AM

    Well....if a child died of SIDS years ago; to me, one cannot blame the parents; they had been trained not to pick up a crying and/or sleeping infant. This is where, yes, progress has been made to help youth of today. Now parents are trained how to put the baby in crib, to hold them, etc. Before it was don't pick up a crying baby from crib, you will "spoil them". People just didn't know back then, and many a parent so upset but they are not to blame. Progress here , has been made, which is good. However, if something is wrong with a child now, there is a name for almost everything and it isn't just that oh...he is just that way or it is just a phase he/she is going through. Life is tough. And the better we go back to basics, simplicity, it might be just a whole lot better. Some people just "settle" saying "I'm o.k." , and really they should themselves, strive to be better than "I'm o.k." unless they were traumatized in a war, but even that, they might want to try to "get over" and a soldier might really want to be better than "just o.k." People can be tough; and that isn't good many times. The youth of today, almost ask the adults to be "tough" with them, even when the adult doesn't feel like it; why , because they just want attention so much and aren't getting it from their parents or siblings; is that good...I just don't think so; them seeking out that kind of attention. Sometimes just totally wrong and it should start always with either in the womb, or in infancy; a good foundation which primal therapy can give one.

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  3. KatherinaninaMarch 25, 2017 at 5:37 AM

    Thanks for pointing this out. I didn't know that babies would prefer to be held by a kind stranger than no one at all. I thought babies only wanted their parents or nothing because that's how I felt. For me I hated being held so soon by the nurses after being born because I wanted them to leave me alone so my mother would hold me. If the hostpital system wasn't there my mother would have held me, but she just went along with the system. No wonder I always wanted to buck the system.


    We have some of these types of volunteer cuddlers programs here in Australia too. I found something about it on ABC news but their site is down so I'll post a link when it's back up.

    I've been supporting a young single mum with her baby in my local community. My mother and I helped her write her birth plan, and talk with the midwives at the hospital before going into hospital about keeping her baby with her straight after birth and waiting for the cord to transfer all the blood after birth before disconnecting it. She was so much more confident about going to the birthing unit.
    And no doubt her baby was less stressed in the weeks leading up to birth.

    Also my boyfriend and I are giving her my second hand car which I could sell but I'd rather help a mum and her baby. Doing this has instantly lifted my heart. If only someone had done that for my mum and me. When I was born my mother hitch hiked home from hostpital in one of the worst winters on record, back to an isolated run down cottage in the country with no hot water or electricity. She had to chop fire wood. No wonder it means so much to me to give a single mum a car. Makes my heart feel good.



    Katherina

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  4. stevenbMarch 26, 2017 at 10:51 PM

    Yes, I see more and more of these programs where volunteers cuddle babies, for example babies born to addicted mothers. It's a beautiful thing that these ideas are spreading and get implemented. Thanks for your tireless work.

    http://www.wtae.com/article/human-touch-of-cuddler-program-helps-pittsburgh-s-heroin-addicted-babies/7480291

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  5. AnonymousMarch 30, 2017 at 12:52 PM

    Hi Art

    Yes, what a beautiful idea !

    Here is another good idea where newborns gets special attention :
    https://www.spruttegruppen.dk/danish-octo-project-english/

    Groups of women crochet colorful Octopus' for premature babies. The tentacles of the octopus resemble the umbilical cord and remind the babies of their time in the womb. This helps the little newborn to feel a little more secure.

    Flemming D


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  6. AnonymousMarch 31, 2017 at 2:08 AM

    Hallo Art
    Thank you for this news! At last something good is being done to stop unnecessary emotional pain in babyhood and childhood. It is very interesting... wonderful. I wish it had been there in 1948. I spent weeks as a two-month premature baby untouched in an incubator and then to a very cold mother who hated and never touched me, let alone acknowledge my existence. Perhaps human beings are kinder now or at least try to be to helpless babies. I hope this happens in England or is that hoping for too much? Sandie.

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Editor