Welcome to the Baby & Me blogs!
This is the first post in a new blog series, Baby & Me, that we're starting here at Workplace Nursery! The hopes for this series is that you can learn a little bit about how your baby develops from someone who is currently researching this, our marketing intern Alice. Alice is a current developmental psychology PhD student at the University of Birmingham - read her full bio at the bottom of this article for more details. Stay tuned for future blogs that will give you insights into a wide range of topics surrounding your baby's development.
Why is touch so important for babies?
As a parent, you’re in almost constant contact with your baby; whether that’s holding them, feeding them, or playing with them. Babies thrive from the experience of physical touch, and this continues into adulthood. Social touch plays such an important role in our lives, to the point where a lack of this type of touch can often lead us to feel socially excluded and lonely.
In infancy, touch has been found to help develop social learning, which can result in increased social skills in later life. It’s even been discovered that touch can have physical benefits, such as the use of massage therapy leading to preterm babies gaining more weight and spending less time sleeping. It’s unsurprising then why touch is so important when interacting with your baby.
Specifically, touch can be used to help soothe your baby by reducing their stress. But exactly what type of touch is most effective when trying to calm your baby? Well, studies have found it’s all linked to certain types of nerve receptors in the skin, called C-tactile afferents. These nerve receptors respond best to touch with certain characteristics and send signals to your baby’s brain that causes them to relax.
What type of touch soothes your baby most effectively?
1. Pressure
These nerve receptors respond best when you touch your baby with a light gentle pressure. This is probably something you do naturally, and you don’t even realise how beneficial it is for your baby.
2. Temperature
Unsurprisingly, the most soothing form of touch for your baby is a touch at body temperature (around 32°C). Therefore, if your hands are a little cold, try warming them up before going to soothe your baby.
3. Speed
The speed at which you touch your baby can also affect how relaxing it is for them. The nerve receptors in your baby’s skin respond best to smooth movements (i.e., stroking) at medium speed. Again, this is probably something you do without even thinking! But, if you find you're struggling to calm your baby, maybe try increasing or decreasing the speed at which you are stroking them.
4. Skin-on-skin
To ensure your touch has the most soothing effect on your baby, you could also consider making sure the touch is skin-on-skin. Research has long found skin-on-skin contact to be the most effective form of touch and it also ensures your baby gets the benefit of touch at hand temperature (as described above).
What role do you play when soothing your baby?
One more aspect of touch that can alter the effectiveness of soothing your baby is who is administering the touch. Research has found babies react much better to a touch from their parent/caregiver as opposed to someone else. This is also linked to those nerve receptors as the receptors feed information back directly to the part of your baby’s brain that is involved in social processing. This is probably why you are one of the best people to help calm your baby down when they are feeling stressed!
Take home message...
Overall, most parents/caregivers have seen first-hand how touch can be used to help soothe their baby. Listed above are the ways in which you can ensure this touch is most effective, however, it’s likely a lot of these tips already come naturally to you. But, if you’re ever wondering why the instinctual soothing touch you give your baby is so good at calming them down, it’s all about how the nerve receptors in their skin communicate with their brain.
In essence, these receptors tell your baby’s brain to relax when they feel a gentle touch at medium speed from a bare hand of someone they know. And, if your touch doesn’t seem to be calming your baby down, maybe try and actively focus on the pressure, temperature of your hand, and speed at which you’re stroking them, while ensuring your touch is skin-on-skin and they know it’s coming from you.
About the author
Alice is our Marketing Intern and also a developmental psychologist. She is currently studying as a PhD student at the University of Birmingham within the Birmingham BabyLab. Her research involves exploring how babies develop a sense of self-awareness, creating and using a new virtual reality system to do so.