Touch and your newborn's emotions

Touch

For many of us what we want after, or before, a hard day is a hug. Touch helps us to build relationships and to regulate our emotions. Your newborn baby has been aware of touch since around the 8th week of your pregnancy and will have felt their hands touching their face and mouth before they were born. Touch is one of the first ways in which your child learns about themselves and about the world. They use their mouth and then, as their physical skills develop, their hands, feet and body to explore and learn. In this blog, we are going to look at the role of touch in helping your newborn baby regulate their emotions and learn about the world. 

Our skin 

Touch is the first sense to develop, and the skin is our largest sensory organ. Touch is not simple, the skin has different sensory receptors for different sensations with receptors to detect pressure, pain, heat, cold, itches and injuries. Not only do we know that we have been touched but we can also detect how firmly we were touched, a light touch might feel ticklish whilst a firmer touch might be calming. Researchers have also suggested that the way touch is perceived is linked to the context and relationship between the person being touched and the person touching them, so the same action will be understood differently in different contexts. Touch is one of our senses but is also linked to social and emotional development, to our relationships and our ability to regulate.  

Touch and your baby 

Recently more has been learnt about the skin with receptors found, initially in mice, that respond only to stroking. This receptor might be linked to mammals licking their newborns. Whilst we are not suggesting that you lick your baby, these studies suggest that touch might help your baby to regulate their emotions. Researchers have suggested that baby massage helps you to build your relationship with your baby and to be responsive to their needs. You might not want to start more structured massage during your baby’s first few weeks but remember that gently touching your baby as you care for them is likely to comfort them and help them to be calm. You and your baby might find that this regular touch while you play and care for them is all you need or you might find that you both enjoy regular massage when they are a little older.  

At My First Five Years, we have had a few conversations about our favourite songs and rhymes, we have lots of them between us! But when thinking about rhymes and young babies two of the rhymes we all thought of involve touch. In ‘Round and Round the Garden,’ you gently stroke your baby’s palm before a more exciting tickle and in ‘This little piggy’ the toes are touched in turn again before finishing with a gentle tickle.  As well as being fun, these rhymes help your baby to develop their sense of where their body is and to link your touch on their hands or feet with themselves. 

Gently touching your baby as you play with them and when you get them dressed or change their nappy will help them to associate touch with your presence and comfort. Touch helps them to develop a sense of their body and the connection between themselves, the people around them and the world. Holding and touching your baby is not just lovely for you but helps them to make sense of themselves and the world around them so enjoy holding them for a little longer or giving them a gentle stroke as you play with, bath or change them.  

Reference:  

Addyman, C (2020) The laughing baby: The extraordinary science behind what makes babies happy