Darcia F. Narvaez Ph.D.

Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Babies

Ignorance about babies is undermining society.

Posted Dec 08, 2013

Have you noticed all the stressed babies? Maybe 1 in 30 I see has glowing eyes, which I take as a sign of thriving. What's up? Perhaps ignorance about babies and their needs. Here are 10 things to know.

1. Babies are social mammals with social mammalian needs. Social mammals emerged more than 30 million years ago with intensive parenting (a developmental nest or niche). This is one of the many (extra-genetic) things that evolved other than genes. This developmental nest matches up with the maturational schedule and thus is required for an individual to develop optimally. Intensive parenting practices for babies include years of breastfeeding to develop brain and body systems, nearly constant touch and physical presence of caregivers, responsiveness to needs preventing distress, free play with multi-aged playmates, and soothing perinatal experiences. Each of these has significant effects on physical health.

2. Human babies are born "half-baked" and require an external womb. Humans are born way early compared to other animals: nine months early in terms of mobility and 18 months early in terms of bone development and foraging capacities. Full-term babies have 25% of adult brain volume and most of it grows in the first five years. Thus, the human nest for its young evolved to be even more intense than for other social mammals because of the underdeveloped newborn, lasting for three to five years. Humans also added to the list of expected care a village of positive social support for both mother and baby. (Actually, human brain development lasts into the third decade of life, suggesting that social support and mentoring continue at least that long.)

3. If adults mess up on the post-birth “baking,” long-term problems can result. Each of the caregiving practices mentioned above has longterm effects on the physical health but also the social health of the individual. For example, distressing babies regularly or intensively (by not giving them what they need) undermines self-regulatory systems. This is common knowledge in other cultures and was so in our past. In Spanish, there is a term used for adolescents and adults who misbehave: malcriado (misraised).

4. Babies thrive on affectionate love. When babies receive food and diaper changes and little else, they die. If they receive partial attention and stay alive, it is still not enough—they won’t reach their full potential. Urie Bronfenbrenner, who emphasized the multiple systems of support that foster optimal development, said that babies do best when at least one person is crazy about them. Others have noted that children grow best with three affectionate, consistent caregivers. In fact, babies expect more than mom and dad for loving care. Babies are ready for a community of close, responsive caregivers that includes mother nearby.

5. Babies’ right hemisphere of the brain is developing rapidly in the first three years. The right hemisphere develops in response to face-to-face social experience, with extended shared eye gaze. The right hemisphere governs several self-regulatory systems. If babies are placed in front of screens, ignored or isolated, they are missing critical experiences.

6. Babies expect to play and move. Babies expect to be “in arms” or on the body of the caregiver most of the time. Skin-to-skin contact is a calming influence. After learning this one of my students when at a family gathering took a crying baby and held it to his neck, which calmed it down. Babies expect companionship not isolation or intrusion. They expect to be in the middle of community social life. They are ready to play from birth. Play is a primary method for learning self-control and social skills. Companionship care—friendship, mutual responsiveness, and playfulness—builds social and practical intelligence. Babies and caregivers share intersubjective states, building the child’s capacities for the interpersonal “dances” that fill social life.

7. Babies have built-in warning systems. If they are not getting what they need, babies let you know. It is best, as most cultures have long known, to respond to a baby’s grimace or gesture and not to wait till crying occurs. Young babies have difficulty stopping crying once it starts. The best advice for baby care is to sensitively follow the baby, not the experts.

8. Babies lock their experiences into procedural memory vaults that will be inaccessible but apparent in later behavior and attitudes. Babies can be toxically stressed from neglecting the list of needs above. They won’t forget. It will undermine their trust of others, their health, and social wellbeing, and lead to self-centered morality which can do much destruction to the world.

9. Culture does not erase the evolved needs babies have. Babies cannot retract their mammalian needs. Yet, some adult cultures advocate violating evolved baby needs as if they do not matter and despite the protests of the baby. Everyday violations include baby isolation like sleeping alone, “crying it out” sleep training, infant formula, or baby videos and flashcards.* When violations occur regularly, at critical time periods or are intense, they undermine optimal development. These violations are encoded in the baby’s body as the optimal development of systems is undermined (e.g., immunity, neurotransmitters, endocrine systems like oxytocin). Surprisingly, some developmental psychologists think it fine to violate these needs** in order for the child to fit into the culture.

The rationalization of “culture over biology” reflects a lack of understanding not only of human nature but of optimal development. This has occurred in laboratories with other animals whose natures were misunderstood. For example, Harry Harlow, known for his experiments with monkeys and “mother love,” at first did not realize he was raising abnormal monkeys when he isolated them in cages. Similarly, at least one of the aggressive rat strains used in lab studies today was first created when scientists isolated offspring after birth, again not realizing the abnormality of isolation. Note how the cultural assumptions of the scientists created the abnormal animals. So it matters what cultural assumptions you have.

The culture-over-biology view may be doing the same thing with human beings. By not understanding babies and their needs, we are creating species-atypical human beings. We can only know this to be the case in light of knowledge about human beings who develop under evolved conditions (the "developmental nest" described in point 1): typically, small-band hunter-gatherers. They are wiser, more perceptive and virtuous than we humans in the U.S. today (see note below).

Thus, the final point:

10. Experiences that consistently violate evolution undermine human nature. When species-atypical childrearing occurs, we end up with people whose health and sociality are compromised (which we can see all over the USA today with epidemics of depression, anxiety, high suicide and drug use rates***). Such mis-raised creatures might do all right on achievement tests or IQ measures, but they may also be dangerous reptiles whose world revolves around themselves. A lot of smart reptiles (“snakes in suits”) on Wall Street and elsewhere have been running the country into the ground.

What to do?

Inform others about the needs of babies.
Be aware of the needs of babies around you and interact sensitively with the babies you encounter.
Support parents to be sensitive to the needs of their babies. This will also require many more institutional and social supports for families with children, including extensive parental leave which other developed nations provide. It's an uphill battle right now but raising awareness is the first step.
Read and learn from books that convey the evolved principles of caregiving.

*Note that sometimes violations (e.g., formula, isolation) are required under emergency conditions that are matters of life and death. Also note: In a way, U.S. culture forces parents into these violations because there is no extended family or community support to help provide for all the many needs of a baby.

**Of course they don’t think it’s a violation because they don’t take the set of mammalian needs seriously.

***In the U.S., everyone under 50 has numerous health disadvantages compared to citizens in 16 other developed nations (National Research Council, 2013).

Note: Of course, every human community is not perfect but when you provide young children with their basic needs, they are less aggressive and self-centered. They are less preoccupied with what they want because they got all they wanted when they needed it in early life. The baby nest described above makes for a smart, healthy, well-functioning body and brain, with high emotional intelligence and self-control. They are more socially skilled and empathic toward others. All this makes getting along with others so much easier. All this will have to be explained more thoroughly in another post, citing the anthropology research that shows what people in small-band hunter-gatherer communities are like.

To read more about the importance of early experience for optimal development, see the forthcoming book, Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture and Wisdom.

Note on Basic Assumptions: When I write about parenting, I assume the importance of the evolved developmental niche (EDN) for raising human infants (which initially arose over 30 million years ago with the emergence of the social mammals and has been slightly altered among human groups based on anthropological research).

The EDN is the baseline I use for determining what fosters optimal human health, well-being, and compassionate morality. The niche includes at least the following: infant-initiated breastfeeding for several years, nearly constant touch, responsiveness to needs so the young child does not get distressed, playful companionship, multiple adult caregivers, positive social support, and natural childbirth.

All these characteristics are linked to health in mammalian and human studies (see Narvaez, Panksepp, Schore & Gleason, 2013, for a review.) Thus, shifts away from the EDN baseline are risky. My comments and posts stem from these basic assumptions.

References

Babiak, P. & Hare, R.D. (2006). Snakes in Suits, When Psychopaths Go To Work. New York, NY: Harper Collins.

Blum, D. (2002). Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection. New York, NY: Perseus Publishing.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Chiron, J.I., Nabbout, R., Lounes, R., Syrota, A., & Dulac, O. (1997). The right brain hemisphere is dominant in human infants. Brain, 120, 1057-1065.

Fry, D. P. (2006). The human potential for peace: An anthropological challenge to assumptions about war and violence. New York: Oxford University Press.

Fry, D. (Ed.) (2013). War, peace and human nature. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Hrdy, S. (2009). Mothers and others: The evolutionary origins of mutual understanding. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.

Ingold, T. (1999). On the social relations of the hunter-gatherer band. In R. B. Lee & R. Daly (Eds.), The Cambridge encyclopedia of hunters and gatherers (pp. 399–410). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Konner, M. (2010). The evolution of childhood. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.

Liedloff, J. (1977). The Continuum concept. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books.

Montagu, A. (1986). Touching: The human significance of the skin. New York: Harper & Row.

Narvaez, D. (2013). Development and socialization within an evolutionary context: Growing Up to Become "A good and useful human being." In D. Fry (Ed.), War, Peace and Human Nature: The convergence of Evolutionary and Cultural Views (pp. 341-358). New York: Oxford University Press.

Narvaez, D. (forthcoming). Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture and Wisdom. New York, NY: W.W. Norton.

Narvaez, D., & Gleason, T. (2013). Developmental optimization. In D. Narvaez, J., Panksepp, A. Schore, & T. Gleason (Eds.), Evolution, Early Experience and Human Development: From Research to Practice and Policy (pp. 307-325). New York: Oxford University Press.

Narvaez, D., Panksepp, J., Schore, A., & Gleason, T. (Eds.) (2013). Evolution, Early Experience and Human Development: From Research to Practice and Policy. New York: Oxford University Press.

Narvaez, D., Valentino, K., Fuentes, A., McKenna, J., & Gray, P. (2014). Ancestral Landscapes in Human Evolution: Culture, Childrearing and Social Wellbeing. New York: Oxford University Press.

National Research Council. (2013). U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Schore, A. (1994). Affect regulation. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Schore, A.N. (2002). Dysregulation of the right brain: a fundamental mechanism of traumatic attachment and the psychopathogenesis of posttraumatic stress disorder. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 36, 9-30.

Schore, A.N. (2003). Affect dysregulation & disorders of the self. 1st ed. New York: W.W. Norton.

Schore, A.N. (2005). Attachment, affect regulation, and the developing right brain: Linking developmental neuroscience to pediatrics. Pediatrics In Review, 26, 204-211.

Spitz, R.A. (1945). Hospitalism; an inquiry into the genesis of psychiatric conditions in early childhood. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child. 1, 53-74.

Tomkins, S. (1965). Affect and the psychology of knowledge. In S.S. Tomkins & C.E. Izard (Eds.), Affect, cognition, and personality. New York: Springer.

Trevarthen, C. (2005). Stepping away from the mirror: Pride and shame in adventures of companionship”—Reflections on the nature and emotional needs of infant intersubjectivity. In C.S. Carter, L. Ahnert, K.E. Grossmann, S.B., Hrdy, M.E. Lamb, S.W. Porges, & N. Sachser (Eds.), Attachment and bonding: A new synthesis (pp. 55-84). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Trevarthen, C. (2006). First things first: infants make good use of the sympathetic rhythm of imitation, without reason or language. Journal of Child Psychotherapy 31(1), 91-113.

Trevarthen, C., & Aitken, (2001). Infant intersubjectivity: Research, theory, and clinical applications; Annual Research Review. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42, 3-48.

Trevathan, W.R. (2011). Human birth: An evolutionary perspective, 2nd ed.. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

Thank you

Submitted by Mandi on December 11, 2013 - 2:37pm

I just wanted to thank you for your voice in this field. I've increasingly provided more of the "developmental nest" for each of my children, and the differences in their development are apparent. It's hard in our culture. I have even been accused of "child abuse" for nursing over the age of 2! Ridiculous!

I also wanted to note that I appreciate the tone of this article. I commented negatively on another of your articles (the one that implied that if you can't perfectly support all of the mammalian needs, you aren't even fit to raise a pet). This one provided nearly the same information with none of the judgment. I find it much more useful, and would feel comfortable sharing it with friends.

imprinted iatrogenic trauma is destroying society

Submitted by molested and raped at birth on December 11, 2013 - 6:55pm

Standard obstetrical procedures in this country are a recipe for disaster. Hightened rates of drug addiction, suicide, depression, sadomasochism, cerebral palsey, autism and fractured marriages can all be traced to how people were treated at birth. It's a huge scandal which shows up in our health statistics (see "hispanic paradox" on wikipedia). Expectant parents need counseling by midwives who know the system and how to take charge to stop needless medicalized trauma. Or even better, have the baby at home like most european births.

It seems like your points are

Submitted by Anonymous on December 12, 2013 - 3:14am

It seems like your points are based entirely on modern-day living, which contradicts your "30 million years ago" premise.

It's very difficult to imagine that pre-historic man, or pre-homo-sapiens man had, for example, the means, resources, or motivation to gather around to cuddle the baby in the bed all night. Perhaps a few history lessons are missing from your experience?

Your profession has been known to discard and rewrite what it considers to be the "science" of child development every couple of decades. Ignoring evolution and anthropology is akin to ensuring you and your profession are "wrong again".

re: "It's very difficult to

Submitted by Anonymous on December 12, 2013 - 2:28pm

re: "It's very difficult to imagine that pre-historic man, or pre-homo-sapiens man had, for example, the means, resources, or motivation to gather around to cuddle the baby in the bed all night."

Not to fall prey to the "appeal to the good-old-days fallacy" here, but in the author's defense, pre-historic man (read: mothers) would have kept their babies with them while sleeping, and in fact at most other times as well, mostly as a means of keeping the baby warm enough, as well as guaranteeing nominal physical safety.

To add to this

Submitted by Simon Says on December 16, 2013 - 7:06am

You only need to look at our cousins; the great apes and other primates, whose infants are born far more developed and prepared for their social worlds than human infants, to see how these infants are in a constant connection with their mothers for the first months of their lives, to understand how silly is the statement; "It's very difficult to imagine that pre-historic man, or pre-homo-sapiens man had, for example, the means, resources, or motivation to gather around to cuddle the baby in the bed all night."

No means to cuddle a baby all night?

Submitted by Erynn on December 16, 2013 - 11:14am

With all due respect, without artificial light, what else is prehistoric man going to do? Put the baby in another cave/hut/tent and hope nothing happens?
Early man most definitely possessed the means, motivation, and resources to keep it's young close at night. Motivations including likely death if they did not. There wasn't a constant room temp to rely on, predators could enter there resting places, and they had limited activities available to them after nightfall.
It's very difficult to imagine that they DIDN'T. What were you imagining them doing?

Hilarious...

Submitted by Nan on December 16, 2013 - 3:14pm

Yes, clearly prehistoric man would have put his prehistoric baby in one of the other caves, switched off the lights and left him there to cry it out at 7 o'clock every night.

Have you seen the croods? The

Submitted by Tee on March 10, 2015 - 6:33pm

Have you seen the croods? The dad announces "pile up family" and all family members literally pile on top of one another to sleep entangled together .... I know it's only a cartoon film but still .....

And "glowing eyes" is a sign

Submitted by Anonymous on December 12, 2013 - 3:17am

And "glowing eyes" is a sign of thriving?! Very...scientific of you. Re-reading, sounds like an empty-nest mother and an example of why many scientists view psychology as a soft science, at best.

Actually I haven't noticed

Submitted by Anonymous on December 12, 2013 - 8:45am

Actually I haven't noticed all the stressed babies. I'm not sure where you're hanging out, but all of the little ones in my son's daycare are always smiling and laughing. To be fair to you though, I must admit that I failed to check the glow level of their eyes to make a proper assessment on how well they are thriving. I searched your references (which included many of your own books! Bravo!) but couldn't find any metrics to use to accurately measure this eye glow you speak of. Could you please follow up with more detail about how one measures their child's eye glow?

You see, now I am concerned. I think my son is happy... that is, he smiles when he sees me, loves to play, and I seem to have no problem calming him down after alleviating whatever it was that upset him in the first place. But to be honest, I never once considered his eye glow. I feel like such a failure as a parent having admitted that.

My shortcomings may be in part due to the fact that I don't have much time to actually care for my child as most of it is spent simply sorting out which advice is best. You see, one thing a modern parent will never be in short supply of is a mountain of contradictory advice and the confusion or self-doubt that is inevitably the result of even considering said advice. So thank heavens for your 7th point: "The best advice for baby care is to sensitively follow the baby, not the experts." I will take this at face value and assume that I should not then purchase or read any of the books you recommend at the end of the article and that I can also completely disregard everything you've just said.

Thanks!

following your motherly intuition

Submitted by molested and raped at birth on December 13, 2013 - 1:14am

I think you're missing the point of the article. Her whole point, it seems to me, is precisely to ignore the decades of advice handed down by the so-called experts who themselves were driven by cultural and economic biases and follow your common sense, motherly intuition and human nature itself. Your cynicism about the "experts" is well placed, and I actually think she'd agree with you. She's trying to undo some of the harm by showing that decades of conventional medical wisdom is flat out wrong had has caused a great deal of damage.

You say you have a son. Was he circumcised? If so, he's already fallen prey to medical quackery. If you'd listened to this columnist, it wouldn't have happened.

Sick of doomsday parenting "advice"

Submitted by Catherine Ryan Gregory on December 13, 2013 - 12:50am

This article pushed me over the top. The author's assumptions, leaps of logic and judgments made me feel - at first - like a failure. Then I got mad. I'm fed up with experts outlining all the terrible things that will happen to children whose parents "misraise" them. I had to vent: http://tenthousandhourmama.com/2013/12/12/swearing-off-parenting-advice/

How you react to it is your

Submitted by Erynn on December 16, 2013 - 11:24am

How you react to it is your business. The idea it shouldn't be there because it makes you feel bad *IS* selfish. Because it is also accurate. It isn't judging you, anywhere. Yes, it judges 'experts' who decide that fitting in with cultural norms is more important than fulfilling biological needs - but you? No. It never judged you. You added the judgement yourself. The guilt you are feeling is you. Children who are formula fed have lower IQs. That isn't going to change because you don't like it. Children forced out of emotional support before they are ready suffer socially and emotionally. Not liking it doesn't change that. Babies who sleep in another room are more likely to die from SIDs. Not liking that doesn't change it. Babies are designed for breastfeeding and to be close to caring, responsive adults. Not wanting to hear it doesn't change the truth of it. Your emotional reaction to this information is YOUR emotional reaction to it. We, as a society, should push for the best for our children. And yea, that includes having this discussion, it includes sharing this information. Being upset by experts doing their job is YOUR problem - and no, it's not a good thing. It's a really, really bad thing for our babies. That's how we end up with babies being raised on condenced milk and swaddled under 12 layers. If we want the best for babies then this *needs* to be said - even if it hurt your delicate mummy feels.

Yes!

Submitted by nicoleinparis on December 23, 2013 - 5:30pm

I just want to say I agree with your entire response!

Thank you, Erynn

Submitted by P;G. on April 21, 2014 - 7:23pm

You said what I wanted to. As a mother, (several of my children are grown, some are still growing as teens) a lactation consultant and a doula, I see these stressed babies (that anonymous says she never sees) on a regular basis. Maybe she doesn't realize that a day care center isn't a biologically or neurologically optimal place for a young baby. Also, of course "smiling" can be a sign of happiness, but it has been shown that non-stop smiling in infants is a self ingratiating behavior in neglected infants. In essence, the infant is doing whatever he or she CAN to get as much of the limited time and attention a day care environment is able to supply by being "super cute." Home Reared Infants do smile a lot, but they also are not afraid to show their emotions as they do not fear further abandonment if they are anything less than happy all the time.

Also, what is often seen in day care situations are babies "not caring" if mom leaves at all. I hear so many mothers bragging that their baby "loves day care so much he doesn't even care or notice when I leave." NO! These babies don't do this because they "love day care." They do this because they have insecure or incomplete attachment. It's a disorder, not a good thing!

I'm guessing our anonymous poster hasn't seen these poorly attached babies because.... she has NO IDEA what to look for in a well attached, biologically and neurologically, home reared, breastfed, healthy baby. It's so sad. Attachment disorders are very resistant to treatment. As a rule, mothers have ONE chance to get attachment to stick.... in infancy.

And "not liking" this very real phenomenon is not going to change it. Neither are excuses as to why one "has to" neglect one's infant.

Bravo!

Submitted by Julia on December 13, 2013 - 11:04pm

Thank you Darcia for a beautifully organized and thoughtful summary. As a speech pathologist/communication specialist, I too am trying to save the children....especially from the tidal wave of technology. I will share your article many times over with parents and look forward to utilizing some of your references as well.
Thank you!

Excellent article

Submitted by Kristin A. on December 15, 2013 - 10:20pm

Thank you, Dr. Narvaez, for another wonderful article. I was considering writing a response to the hostile comments the article has received, but I think the 4.2 thousand "likes" (as of 12/15/13) speaks for itself. Dr. Narvaez does a brilliant job of providing the scientific information on healthy human development that parents can use to guide important decisions and to help their children thrive. Many thanks for your good work, Dr. Narvaez.

"typically, small-band

Submitted by Erynn on December 16, 2013 - 11:17am

"typically, small-band hunter-gatherers. They are much wiser, perceptive and virtuous than we humans in the USA today."

... I'm afraid while I agree with you for the most part, this threw me off. How do you quantify and prove "wiser, perceptive and virtuous"?

I agree - she had me until

Submitted by Anonymous on December 17, 2013 - 8:10am

I agree - she had me until that line as well. The sentence sounds downright bizarre and shows an unwarranted idealization of other societies which are flawed, just like ours, because they're made up of flawed human beings. The flaws are just different.

The way the sentence reads, it's almost like that closing line from every Prairie Home Companion - you know, "That's the news from Lake Woebegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average."

I have read several of her

Submitted by Anonymous on December 17, 2013 - 4:22pm

I have read several of her academic articles and books, and the information comes from anthropological evidence of prosocial behavior in these societies. She cites it very well.

Subjective terms

Submitted by Erynn on December 18, 2013 - 4:14pm

Except none of these qualities are quantifiable. They are all subjective terms. I highly doubt she found an ounce of evidence on Wisdom, and erm, how exactly does one DEFINE virtue, let alone prove it? I might give you perceptive, but there is still the question "Of What?". Perceptive of EVERYTHING? I doubt they can, for instance, spot phishing scams. Prosocial is one thing... to throw the word 'virtuous' in is questionable.

Hahaha.

Submitted by Anonymous on December 23, 2013 - 3:26pm

Hahaha.

Define "glow." And please,

Submitted by CaptainGirl on December 16, 2013 - 2:40pm

Define "glow." And please, do tell us how many children you examine, and how glowing eyes are better then other possible measures of infant health. In my experience, healthy kids are energetic, inquisitive and playful, but kids who aren't bouncing off the walls at any particular moment might just be tired.

It's less then useful to be told that I'm inevitably messing up on raising my children because I'm not part of an idealized primitive tribe of hunter-gatherers. I live where I live and face the pressures I face, and the same can be said of many thousands of generations of parents and children.

"Babies are ready for a

Submitted by Ant on December 17, 2013 - 12:24am

"Babies are ready for a community of close, responsive caregivers that includes mother nearby."
Wouldn't that cure a lot of world problems, if we could just all have close responsive caregivers!

Thank you, and have you heard of Ethnopaediatrics?

Submitted by Hellena Post on December 18, 2013 - 6:48am

I loved your article, loved your points, loved the way you've encapsulated so neatly the basic evolutionary imperatives that I've been banging on about for years. As a mother of 8 babies, with all the birthing experiences and baby bonding (or lack of it) experiences we've all collectively gone through…..and through extensive research and personal experience, I agree with all your points completely.

But I just wanted to let you know, that as well as the most excellent resources you mentioned, and it was awesome to see The Continuum Concept in there, there is a new science called Ethnopaediatrics, which is like the science behind the Continuum Concept, but taking it all to far more places. And there's a book called "Our Babies Ourselves" written by Meredith Ryan, that I reckon you'll completely adore, as it absolutely backs up all the information you've given.

Thank you so much for writing this!!!

Complete rubbish

Submitted by Anonymous on December 18, 2013 - 3:18pm

Nice of the good professor to just make stuff up to support her idiotic premises. Amy Teuter, MD, does a nice takedown. http://www.skepticalob.com/2013/12/darcia-narvaez-and-her-paleofantasy-of-infancy.html

Neuroscience backs Dr. Narvaez

Submitted by Kristin A. on December 18, 2013 - 4:05pm

Neuroscientists have also found that healthy right hemispheric development in children is predicated on many of the practices that Dr. Narvaez advocates. Healthy right hemispheric development leads to children who have more prosocial behaviors. While Dr. Teuter certainly has a hostile tone and a sharp tongue about Dr. Narvaez, she really doesn't provide any solid scientific evidence to refute Dr. Narvaez's research. After reading Dr. Teuter's credentials, I really expected her to accomplish more in her critique than a stomping of her feet and heavy dose of sarcasm.

*You can find articles related to right hemispheric development by looking up Allan Schore. Notice he has co-authored papers with Dr. Narvaez. He is one of the most highly respected affective neuroscientists in the United States.

I notice a distinct lack of references.

Submitted by Erynn on December 18, 2013 - 4:18pm

Where exactly are the references here? Yes the person writing it is a doctor, but they're an OB. It's well outside the realms of their expertise, and it's not a peer reviewed document, it's a blog. To add to that, there is little/no evidence given. So... erm... yea. Look harder.

Dr Amy should spend more time...

Submitted by Anonymous on December 28, 2013 - 2:04am

Dr Amy is the perfect example of why people choose a midwife over an OB - the total God-complex she has! She's full of shit.

Point #10

Submitted by Anonymous on December 18, 2013 - 3:28pm

"Experiences that consistently violate evolution undermine human nature"

Is just a tremendously stupid thing for someone who actually studies evolution to say. Do laws against rape and murder undermine human nature? The mistake of thinking that because evolution has selected for certain behavior that behavior must be normatively desirable is typically the purview of Randian libertarians and pick-up artists. I suppose it's, at the very least, novel to see it used thusly.

There's a lot of stuff I actually agree with here (along with some baffling causation attributions, shallow analysis and leaps in logic) but the final point is just off-the-wall-David Icke-type crazy. Eeek! Reptilians!

Human nature?

Submitted by Erynn on December 18, 2013 - 4:21pm

Since when did 'humans do it' = 'human nature'. Rape is CLEARLY not our biological norm for reproduction. While it is possible, females are highly sexual creatures, and female humans are damaged physically and psychologically by rape. If it was a normal human behavior we'd have adapted to it by now. Murder, similarly, would appear to be counter to the norm. It takes special training to teach soldiers to kill enemy soldiers - the people who are trying to kill them. So I would argue that neither of these are base aspects of human nature; they are human possibilities only.

You've misunderstood the

Submitted by Anonymous on December 18, 2013 - 4:46pm

You've misunderstood the point entirely. I suspect you're hopeless, but in case you're not...

Myth of the noble savage aside, rape, murder, infanticide,and fratricide are substantially less common today than they have ever been in hominid history. Though they may not be the "biological norm", these behavior CLEARLY (because caps lock obviously make things more true) have a basis in evolution and therefore it is your darling author, and not I, who would claim they are part of human nature and thus, in her own words, "any experience that consistently violates [them] undermine human nature"

"If it was a normal human behavior we'd have adapted to it by now."

That's simply not how evolution works. It's a far messier process than your assertion would indicate. And how on earth would your psychological "adaptation" factor into this? I don't even know what you're trying to say here.

And you know that non-soldier humans murder each other, right? Even ones without special training!

You're being sold snake oil, and I suspect that rational dialogue will do very little to persuade you otherwise. Cognitive biases are quite strong. In fact, one might say that they're part of human nature...

I dont see how crying it out

Submitted by Michelle on December 20, 2013 - 6:04pm

I dont see how crying it out will traumatize my child. Ive tried every method to help my baby learn to fall asleep on his own. All no cry methods. He slept in bed with me until he was 6 months and started to roll around all over the place. The only thing that worked was to cry it out and NOT be in the room. Now he falls alseep on his own no issues. The first thing people tell me is how much of a happy baby he is. I dont agree with that part of your article is all and Im a mom who said I would never do that and did co sleeping. Reality set in after sleepness nights and still having to work. It only works for some people.

The real issue

Submitted by Simon Says on December 22, 2013 - 5:19am

Michelle wrote:

I dont see how crying it out will traumatize my child.

That's a shame.

The real issue is not necessarily "crying it out", it is repeated or prolonged infant distress. This leads to elevated levels of infant cortisol and this does a number of things;

1. It diverts energy away from developmental tasks such as growth of neurons and their connections so that more energy is available to the muscles.

2. It interrupts connectivity in the anterior cingulate and between the frontal cortex and areas of the limbic system and brain stem

3. it allows cortisol to pass the blood brain barrier where it attacks neurons and damages the protective myelin on those neurons and their connections (axons and dendrites) to other neurons (This is essentially how the brain "talks" between neurons). When you reduce the ability of the brain to "talk to itself" you sew the seeds for a plethora of so called "mental disorders".

4. it interferes with many other processes including; immune function, cellular repair, digestion, etc.

Your son appears to have made the transition quite quickly which is good.

a clarification

Submitted by Simon Says on December 22, 2013 - 5:40am

Simon Says wrote:

2. It interrupts connectivity in the anterior cingulate and between the frontal cortex and areas of the limbic system and brain stem

The healthiness of these connections are an essential ingredient for impulse control and emotional regulation later in life.

Well that's a relief then...

Submitted by Anonymous on December 24, 2013 - 2:35am

Since there's no evidence that sleep training causes "repeated and prolonged infant distress", Michelle has nothing to worry about. No RELIABLE study (and no, neither animal studies nor Wendy Middlemiss' nonsense are those) shows any evidence of such WRT sleep training.

What more evidence would you

Submitted by Simon Says on December 24, 2013 - 4:26am

What more evidence would you need than the child displaying repeated signs of distress (crying)?

Seriously?

Submitted by Anonymous on December 26, 2013 - 12:00pm

Simon Says wrote:

What more evidence would you need than the child displaying repeated signs of distress (crying)?

Crying for a few minutes or hours for 3-4 days (which is par for the course for sleep training) is not in any way evidence of "prolonged and repeated distress". And the studies which show alterations of cortisol pathways involve children subjected to extreme stresses, such as parenal abuse or neglect, or divorce. If the worst thing that happens to a child is an episode of sleep training, they're living a charmed life.

And I repeat, there is NO evidence anywhere that sleep training causes stress on a scale anywhere near that of abuse or neglect, nor any evidence of harm from such.

PLENTY of evidence

Submitted by Darcia F. Narvaez Ph.D. on December 26, 2013 - 11:02pm

There is plenty of evidence with animal newborns who are much more developed and less social than human newborns. Experiments, which would be unethical with human babies, show lasting effects on multiple aspects of the offspring’s development. The most famous program of research is by Michael Meaney and colleagues, who noted that maternal touch during a critical window in the early life of a rat influences gene expression on hundreds of genes. One of the gene’s most studied never turns on properly if maternal care is inadequately nurturing, making the offspring anxious for the rest of its life. Other experiments separating animal mother and offspring in early life (with multiple species) show lasting effects on social development, some of which are not apparent till adolescence.

Perhaps more explanation of the animal studies is warranted in another blog post. But one must bear in mind that humans evolved to expect much more intensive parenting than any other mammal, so the animal studies cannot show the more extensive effects that must be occurring for the vhuman baby who is born 9-18 months early in terms of maturity compared to the animals in the experiments.

Bingo.

Submitted by Anonymous on December 30, 2013 - 12:57pm

Humans are not mice, sleep training isn't normally done on newborns, and sleep training is in no way conmparable to complete lack of touch or prolonged (or, in some studies permanent) separation from the mother. Nor are studies from Romainan orphanages applicable. There is ZERO evidence that short separations in the context of sleep training from the mother of a human child 6+ months old have harmed any child, despite hysterical leaps of (il)logic by this author, Dr. Sears, Wendy Middlemiss and the other usual suspects.

I strongly recommend reading this excellent piece in Slate about the use of bad science on their part : http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/the_kids/2013/07/clinical_lactation_jumps_on_the_dr_sears_bandwagon_to_say_sleep_training.html

Get back to us (and the medical community) when you've got some hard evidence that CIO harms human infants. Until then, please stop spreading hysteria by claiming it does based on irrelevant studies.

Onus of proof is on CIO advocates

Submitted by Darcia F. Narvaez Ph.D. on December 30, 2013 - 9:50pm

Thanks for bringing up bad science--that's very important. But you’ve got it backwards. The onus for proof of “no harm” is not on those who advocate treating children the way they evolved to be treated but on the advocates of CIO (cry it out) training and of other evolutionarily abnormal parenting behaviors. It’s bad science to advocate for something that goes against millions of years of existence with a few paltry outcome variables and bad methodology.
CIO advocates need to do longitudinal studies through at least 4 or 5 decades of life on all aspects of wellbeing (e.g., mental and physical health, social capacities) to show us that such abnormal treatment of mammalian offspring does no harm. (Plus, CIO advocates need to not be making a profit from CIO to be credible.)

Nope. The onus is on those who make bizarre claims of harm to back them up.

Submitted by Anonymous on December 31, 2013 - 2:35am

Bizarre claims, I might add, that are about as scientific as your "glowing eyes" criterion. Get back to us when you've got some real science which makes a credible case for harm from sleep training in humans. So far, what science there is shows no evidence of harm and possible benefit.

And are not you anti-CIO AP-pushers making money off your claims of harm? (The Sears Empire certainly has). What does that say about their/your eligibility to make those claims, then?

(Not that I think that money is a prime motivator in either case, mind. But you did bring it up.)

Baseline assumptions are key

Submitted by Darcia F. Narvaez Ph.D. on December 31, 2013 - 11:19am

If you assume that whatever is commonly done to babies today is “normal” unless some experiment proves otherwise, then all sorts of evolved mammalian parenting practices look “bizarre” like breastfeeding for more than a few months.

The point of my columns on parenting is to use humanity’s evolved parenting practices as the baseline. The evolved developmental niche for young humans includes years of breastfeeding; lots of positive touch and constant physical presence of others in babyhood; warm, responsive care from parents; positive community support; soothing birth experiences; and throughout childhood, playful interactions with all ages. All the characteristics of this “evolved developmental niche” have known effects on mental and physical health.

Instead of assuming that whatever parents do today is fine unless proven otherwise, my view is that anything that violates our evolved baseline needs to prove itself against a very strict criterion of no long-term ill effects. Only animal studies give us insight here since we cannot ethically do experiments on babies (though sometimes short term experiments are published, e.g., with infant formula, that typically look at one outcome in a short time frame; in this case, formula that better matches up with breastmilk “wins”).

I think it is pretty bizarre when humans forget they are mammals with particular needs that need certain environments to develop well and flourish. Culture has pressed people to be content with suboptimal childrearing and the bad outcomes that result. It is now perceived to be “normal” to expect adults to have poor health, to be selfish and aggressive. From a human genus perspective and anthropological data on our cousins who do provide babies what they evolved to need, this is most bizarre.

Except that that's not how science works.

Submitted by Anonymous on January 1, 2014 - 3:47am

Your "basline assumptions" are a product of your own biases - the naturalistic fallacy, the Noble Savage myth, and biological essentialism. Science normally assumes the null hypothesis - unless there is a statistically significant difference between method A and method B, neither can be proven to be superior to the other. All your posturing about "evolved niches" won't make it so - especially since studies performed on actual human infants WRT sleep-training (no, they're not perfect, but are a far better indicator than trumped-up comparisons with rodents permanently deprived of maternal love and touch, or orphange babies) have shown the opposite.

But that's OK. As long as we all know where you're coming from on the subject of parenting, your audience can evaluate the scientific rigor, or lack thereof, or your statements.

that's scientism!

Submitted by Darcia F. Narvaez Ph.D. on January 1, 2014 - 10:17am

It would be good if everyone would present their basic assumptions. You are expressing a scientism perspective--putting one method (randomized experiments) of knowing over all others. Descriptive sciences (e.g., within anthropology, biology) do not use this method and much of life cannot be put to randomized experiments. So we must use multiple methods to know the world. Also, there are animal experiments that don't use extreme techniques but only briefly separate the infant from the mother and years later have effects. Sounds like I should do a post on those.

It also seems that you have a mechanistic view of the world rather than a dynamic one. Humans are dynamic systems whose initial conditions influence subsequent trajectories, with multiple significantly sensitive periods when particular capacities are being shaped for the long term. So violations of mammalian parenting practices at any point when the brain is growing rapidly is a risky maneuver whose effects may not be immediately apparent.

No, it's science.

Submitted by Anonymous on January 6, 2014 - 2:33am

Either you can prove that *human* infants undergoing sleep-training are harmed, or you can't. If you can't, you don't get to say they are harmed. Your biases and assumptions (and they are many, and many are just plain wrong - hunter-gatherers are uniformly better and wiser than us? Really?) don't give you, or anyone else, a pass from backing up your claims with good, hard data.

As someone else in the comments said, and then psychologists wonder why psychology is considered a 'soft' science...

The neuroscience of healthy infant emotional development has been established

Submitted by Kristin A on January 6, 2014 - 11:24am

Neuroscience is certainly not a "soft" science, and a lot has been discovered in the field regarding infant emotional development in recent decades. We now know that human infants are born with immature nervous systems which are not yet equipped for emotional self-regulation. Infants and young children do not have fully developed emotion-regulation structures, and require a primary caregiver to help them to regulate their psychobiology. This is achieved when the primary caregiver mirrors the infant's emotions (empathy) and provides nurturing responses to the infant's cues. Neuroscientist Allan Schore calls it "affective synchrony" [1]. The healthy development of self-regulation and structures associated with socioemotional health, such as the limbic system, are experience-dependent and relationship-dependent. That is, they develop optimally when the infant is provided with consistent affective synchrony and caregiver responsiveness (this effect doesn't change just because it is nighttime). When this environment is not provided, the infant is predisposed to a host of psychological problems [2].

[1] Schore, A. N. (2001). Effects of a secure attachment relationship on right brain development, affect regulation, and infant mental health. Infant mental health Journal, 22(1-2), 7-66.
http://allanschore.com/pdf/SchoreIMHJAttachment.pdf
"In this article I detail the neurobiology of a secure attachment, an exemplar of adaptive infant mental health, and focus upon the primary caregiver’s psychobiological regulation of the infant’s maturing limbic system, the brain areas specialized for adapting to a rapidly changing environment. The infant’s early developing right hemisphere has deep connections into the limbic and autonomic nervous systems and is dominant for the human stress response, and in this manner the attachment relationship facilitates the expansion of the child’s coping capcities. This model suggests that adaptive infant mental
health can be fundamentally defined as the earliest expression of flexible strategies for coping with the novelty and stress that is inherent in human interactions. This efficient right brain function is a resilience factor for optimal development over the later stages of the life cycle."

[2] Schore, A. N. (1997). Early organization of the nonlinear right brain and development of a predisposition to psychiatric disorders. Development and psychopathology, 9(4), 595-631.
http://www.allanschore.com/pdf/SchoreDP97.pdf

Ah...the AP usual bait-and-switch.

Submitted by Anonymous on January 7, 2014 - 4:06am

There is no evidence that sleep training in the context of normal, loving parent-infant relationship has any effect on attachment security, cortisol levels, or whatnot. (Allan Schore, from what I've read of his work, might be *of the opinion* that it does, but the data he and others so far have collected doesn't even suggest it).

I reiterate: when you have the scientific evidence that sleep training *in and of itself* causes permanent structural changes in the brain akin to those seen in chronically stressed infants, and/or damages attachment security, is when you can credibly make the claims you do. Right now, you simply don't have a leg to stand on. Other than your biases, of course...

No one is trying to trick

Submitted by Kristin A on January 7, 2014 - 8:59am

No one is trying to trick you, there was no bait and switch here. You asked for hard science, and I was presenting that. If affective neuroscience informs us that infant brains are incapable of self-regulation and are damaged by failure of the primary caregiver to help them co-regulate, that is enough for me. I respect that it is not enough for you. However, as Dr. Narvaez discussed, it would be unethical to conduct studies that would inflict harm in order to provide the morphological evidence you are demanding. I encourage you to consider that if you have a secure attachment with your child, it is because you have provided for the very needs that we are saying still exist at night.

I am not saying I have all of answers. I'm just presenting the evidence that influenced my decisions. In any case, I wish you all the best.

You did not read that entire

Submitted by julia on February 28, 2014 - 8:11pm

You did not read that entire article. It has no relevance to sleep training, and even argues that self-regulation can result from an interruption of attachment that the caregiver then recovers. It even has brief mention of the benefits of high quality sleep. You, like many, read science selectively to confirm your bias rather than to really understand the world. That's a poor use of science.

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About the Author

Darcia Narvaez, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame and the former executive editor of the Journal of Moral Education.

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