PBS has been showing a new series called This Emotional Life recently. I caught the first episode, which was largely about attachment.
In this episode they showed some footage from the classic rhesus monkey experiments on attachment, conducted in the 1950's and 60's. I had read about the experiments but had never seen any video on them, and it was so striking to see the footage. I've posted a clip (not from the show's website) below.
In these experiments, baby rhesus monkeys were taken from their mothers at birth and raised with no physical contact. They were then given the choice between two "mothers," a wire mother which had a bottle which could feed the monkey, and a cloth monkey which couldn't feed the monkey but felt soft.
The monkeys would consistently run to the feeding mother for food, but would spend all of the rest of the time clinging to the cloth mother. What isn't shown in the clip below is that after being deprived of any real social and physical interaction, they also grew up to be quite emotionally disturbed.
What can we take from this related to breastfeeding? A lot, I think.
For me, the message is: it's not just about the milk. No doubt you know how special breastmilk is - full of species specific perfectly composed nutrition, immune protection tailored to the pathogens in each mother and baby's environment, and proven to protect against numerous threats to infant and maternal health. But that's only part of what makes breastfeeding special. The other part is the nursing relationship - a closeness and means of attachment which occurs when a baby feeds.
I think that this message is valuable to at least two groups of people. First, for all of the partners who feel frustrated because they're unable to feed their babies (at least before a bottle is introduced, if it is). The message to them, I think, is that bonding isn't really about food. Babies bond with people who make them feel secure and loved. And that's what happens when you walk the halls in the middle of the night, holding your baby. You don't need to make milk to do that.
I think it's also a message for mothers who can't breastfeed exclusively. Sometimes I see mothers who have to use a supplemental nursing system - that clunky bottle/tube contraption which allows supplementation at the breast - or who supplement after feedings. No doubt they've wondered if the whole production is worth it when their babies aren't getting all of their nutrition by feeding at the breast. I think that the message from these studies is that any time at the breast has value. Or, as someone recently put it to me, there is such a thing as mothering at the breast.
This isn't meant at all as a dig at women who exclusively pump, and who obviously bond with their babies, too!
Above all, the message I take from these studies is best summed up by British pediatrician Donald Winnicott, who said, "There is no such thing as a baby. There is a baby and someone."
What do you take from these experiments?
