Technology is awesome … and it can be very frustrating and stressful when it doesn’t perform the way we want it to. Most of our computer technology can be compared to the human brain – awesome and frustrating too. In fact the human brain is an electrical/chemical system of information storage and retrieval.
As a chiropractor working with the brain and spinal cord daily, I find the newest brain research quite refreshing and revealing. Take, for instance, infant researchers who study mother /daughter eye bonding. This intense gazing does not happen with mother/son bonding. For example, a one day old girl baby will look at her mother’s face.
A one day old baby boy however prefers to find a mobile in his field of vision. Even in the next 3 months, mutual face gazing between mother and daughter will increase 400 percent. A daughter uses her mother’s face as a visual mirror just as she uses her mother’s voice as an acoustic mirror.
Boys on the other hand, in the same three months, will still prefer staring at the mobile. The difference is simply a hard wired fact. It has been shown that face gazing is not a neediness for the female but rather from a skill, interest and motivation for personal contact that is stronger in girls than in boys.
Girls look for and want emotional communication. They want it at the age of one day old and they want it still at the age of 80. Touch is another hard wired need of both boy and girl babies. It is documented that parents touch their daughter more frequently than their sons. Parents stimulate the brains of their daughters to be receptive to more tactile contact. Hence the female brain becomes wired from exposure to early stimulation to be more relational , more interested in inter-personal connection.
In the infant, touch enhances immune function and the production of growth hormones. When separation between mother and infant is too long, immune system depression occurs which is known as ‘failure to thrive’ syndrome. This immune system depression can last throughout a lifetime! Not touching an infant sufficiently is like not feeding the infant enough nourishment!
In summary, the mother mirrors auditorialy, visually and tactilely for the baby to know who she is using “mirror neurons “ within the brain itself. This, in turn, aids the baby in the long procession of psychological events leading to the formation of a stable self identity. Take a moment to think of your children, yourself, or brothers and sisters and relate this information to the amount of facial bonding, touch and acoustic bonding received as a child. FASCINATING!
