Babies can pick up on their mothers’ emotions

Leandra Abreu of Ububele writes:

Often, caregivers think that babies are too young to understand what is going on around them, but in reality, babies can pick up on the emotions and feelings of individuals around them, especially their caregivers.

Babies can feel emotions such as interest, sadness, happiness, and disgust. They might not have the language to communicate this, but do communicate these through their facial expressions and body posture.

This is possible because our brains are constructed in a way that when we interact with other people who are feeling strong emotions, we can feel these emotions as if we are experiencing them ourselves.

A recent study has revealed proof of emotions being ‘contagious’. The study was carried out by Dr Vicky Leong of the University of Cambridge’s department of psychology whose research using brain scans discovered that when mothers and babies were interacting with each other, the brain waves of both mothers and babies tended to synchronise and therefore, match each other.

This is called ‘intrapersonal neural connectivity’ which is caused by the large amount of positive time that mothers spend with their babies. During this positive time, mothers are usually using a lot of facial expressions, have plenty of eye contact and use sensitive emotional tones when talking to their babies.

Through this intrapersonal neural connectivity, we see the importance of responding to our baby’s body language. It is through responding to their cues that we can promote feelings of being safe and secure within our babies, which is important in building a strong relationship with them.

When a baby can develop a strong relationship with their primary caregiver, the way they see the world is moulded, affecting all areas of their development. Children learn about the world and their environment from the relationships that they have with their caregivers, family members and community members.

It is because of these relationships that they can express themselves and gain an understanding of how to act in society. Therefore, when you have a strong relationship with your child, you provide them with a sense of confidence to explore their worlds and establish a sense of who they are by experimenting and making mistakes, knowing that they can come back to you if they need to.

But what happens with parents that are unable to spend a lot of time with their babies or are experiencing high amounts of external stressors that make it difficult to have positive interactions with their babies?

At The Ububele, we offer a variety of different therapeutic spaces, one of them being the Parent-Infant Psychotherapy (PIP) clinic, which is focused on encouraging good parent-infant attachment and mental health to promote optimal development.

The PIP clinic is a therapeutic service for babies under the age of three and their caregivers (biological and other), including parents who lost a child during pregnancy or in childbirth and babies in institutional care.

You can make use of this service if you are having difficulties with feeding, sleeping, eating or experiencing post-natal depression, parental anxiety, birth trauma, previous losses or any worries about yourself or your baby.

Details: Ububele 011 786 5085; WhatsApp 079 407 5461; info@ububele.org