The physical contact while breastfeeding that the infant has with the mother is most important for the child.

Whenever I am asked what the most important factor in the first stages of life is, I always answer, “I hope the first thing that goes through the digestive system of a baby is the colostrum of his mother. I believe this is most important as a starting point for development of a good human being.”

Infant care involves basically breast-feeding and holding the child. In other words, the physical contact while breastfeeding* that the infant has with the mother is most important for the child.

Even newborn babies, in general, like more than anything to be held by their mothers. This is natural when the baby is being breast-fed. The baby’s nerves are calmed when he is held often. I hope that a mother can hold her child and give some of her milk every time he asks for it. I hope you as a mother can breast-feed your child.

One develops a maternal instinct once the baby is born. Therefore, the birth is the starting point for the mother, and the maternal instinct develops naturally through nursing the baby. When the baby sucks on the mother’s nipple, this skin sensation stimulates the center for emotion in the brain and works to develop a maternal bond to the child. As this process is repeated the maternal instinct is reinforced in the mother.

It is often said that mothers have lost confidence in their ability to raise children. The best “medicine” to relieve these worries and to develop self-confidence in child-rearing is to breast-feed your baby.

While watching the baby feeding and become satiated, the mother starts to realize that she has become a very necessary person in the baby’s life. From this realization, maternal confidence will arise, since it is her milk which is allowing her baby to grow. When the mother and child develop this strong bond, there will be no need to worry about getting neurotic from the pressures of parenting. There are those who say when the bond is too strong, the mother is unable to view her child objectively. However, I believe that to start with a mother needs to develop consciousness and confidence as a mother.

When you look for the reasons that cause children to become emotionally unstable, there are many points to reflect on. It may be that the child was not enveloped in his mother’s love or maybe the child was reared on artificial nutrition, or did not have enough physical contact with his mother. Other reasons may be that he did not get the loving looks from the mother, so necessary for the child, or that allergies (worsened with the use of artificial nutrition) caused the child’s personality to be slightly altered.

In considering only physical growth, there is not much difference between artificial nutrition and breast milk. However, it should not be thought that the growth of the body from receiving nutrition is the only factor in development. If it were just a matter of giving nutrition, even a robot could do the job. However, the only one that can nurture the emotional development of a child is the mother. Therefore, breast-feeding the child is most important in order for the child to develop emotionally and physically.

Furthermore, breast-feeding for the first time demands a great deal of effort from both mother and child. Since it is not like the baby bottle where just a little suck gets plenty of milk, there is a lot of effort required from the baby. One must not forget that this effort, which was exerted at the very first stage becomes a good base for when the child grows up and seeks to be independent.

If there are still women who say they do not want to breast-feed because their breasts will sag, that is a terrible shame. There is no way parenting works when one just worries about the self. The result of this sort of self-centeredness will not be seen until ten or twenty years later. When it comes time and you end up being hurt by your children’s actions or words, it will be too late.

Author : Jushichiro Naito M.D.


[Annotation] Physical contact while breastfeeding*
When considering the effects of breastfeeding from the standpoint of mother-infant interaction, its significance for the establishment of motherhood is obvious.
Breastfeeding stimulus: The most important element of breastfeeding is the nursing behavior of the baby. It provides the sensation that is exclusively experienced by the mother. The sensation is generated in reaction to her baby’s breastfeeding stimulus and in a chain reaction, it also triggers another sensation generated by the lactation (or in some cases, milk ejection) reflex, arousing the maternal instincts through the establishment of consciousness as a mother, or in other words, motherhood, in mothers. For this reason, the breastfeeding behavior of babies is remarkably important. During breastfeeding, the mother holds her baby close to her chest in a position that enables them both to see each other face to face. Moreover, when the mother holds her baby in this way, it creates a perfect distance for the baby to clearly see and recognize his or her mother’s face with his or her own eyes.

Visual sense (sight): Visual sense plays the most important role in breastfeeding. Mother and her baby look at each other’s facial expressions to make eye contact. The protruding shape of the mother’s breasts enables the mother and her baby to make eye contact easily during breastfeeding.

Tactile sense (touch): While breastfeeding, the baby feels his or her mother’s nipple with the lips and tongue, while feeling his or her mothers’ body with the hands. Therefore, breastfeeding encourages the mother-infant interaction significantly through the physical contact they make with sensitive organs such as the lips and the nipples. It is reported that when babies touch their mothers’ bodies while stimulating their nipples with the lips and tongue, mothers receive a strong sensory stimulation.

Auditory sense (hearing): The auditory sense of the baby is fully developed when born and when his or her mother talks to him or her, the baby will respond by moving arms and legs in attunement with her voice. Auditory sense plays an important role during the resting time at the time of the baby’s nursing.
Babies take in breast milk, repeating a cycle of nursing and having a break alternatively. The resting time of the baby will become shorter with age but a break from feeding provides a chance for the mother to gently rock her baby and talk to him or her. If, contrary to expectations, the mother does not rock or talk, the baby expresses his or her wish to be rocked/talked to by making cooing sounds. Breastfeeding thus creates excellent mother-infant interaction via the auditory sense.
Furthermore, the mother’s auditory sense also plays a vital role. The baby’s action of crying is an important means of expressing his or her own feelings. Women who breastfeed their babies are highly sensitive to the crying sounds of babies and young children even when they are not breastfeeding at that particular moment. They are significantly sensitive to the crying voices of their own babies, triggering physical reflexes – a surge in blood circulation around their breasts, the tensing of the breasts and even lactation in some cases.
Therefore, during breastfeeding, the mother-infant interaction occurs via the auditory sense on both mother’s and baby’s sides. In this sense, breastfeeding can be considered as having a different dimension than bottle-feeding.

Gustatory sense (taste): While the flavor of infant formula milk is uniform, breast milk is believed to have variations in flavor, in accordance to the baby’s age and mother’s individuality.
When the baby starts breastfeeding on his or her mother’s nipple, the amount of milk being produced increases rapidly and during that time no change is observed in the protein concentration in breast milk. However, the fat content, breast milk’s pH balance and the weight of the dry matter (contents including protein, fat, sugar and minerals that remain after a dehydration process) of breast milk excluding protein increase. Therefore, even in single occasion of feeding with only one of the breasts, the flavor of breast milk changes with time during the course of feeding.

Editorial Supervisor : Noboru Kobayashi M.D.