One of the terms that is usually associated with the Parenting Attachment It is the qualifier of "natural". Breeding in arms, accompanied sleep and breastfeeding are pillars of Breeding. What is natural in the human being? Sleep with your baby? Breastfeeding on demand? Even when? Is it beneficial to respect your need for attachment? Anthropology and ethology, in addition to history, can help us answer these questions. That is why I have chosen the photo of the header, the footprints of Laetoli, those of the first hominid bipedos that we conserve, dating back 3.6 million years ago.
We start with some of the reasons for what is natural in this animal that we are, a huge brain primate mammal. If civilization must change these basic guidelines it is something that I will not analyze in this topic. In successive subjects I will deepen it.
Each mammalian species develops a milk perfectly adapted to the needs of its offspring and a suitable way of breeding for them. Human breeding is born unfinished, producing in its first two years of life a great physical growth and especially an extraordinary mental and brain development. Nature has designed what is needed for that huge intellectual takeoff.
Breastfeeding It provides the perfect food for optimal immune, mental and sensory development. Breastfeeding of humans and primates is on demand, with free access to the breast, because in addition the offspring do not remain in any den but instead accompany the mother continuously, learning from her. The duration of human lactation, using comparative parameters with other animals, would be between three and seven years.
The human baby is born completely defenseless and prepared to survive in direct contact with his mother 24 hours a day. Needs to be in arms and be breastfed on demand, both for your physical and emotional health. The baby separated from his mother and only screams and cries because his instinct tells him that only this way will he save his life. Thousands of years of evolution have prepared him to claim physical contact and accompanied sleep. Remember that all primates breastfeed on demand and carry the offspring in arms continuously. And no primate or in non-Western societies is found that babies and children sleep alone as a rule, rather the opposite.
He permanent physical contact It favors emotional development, self-esteem and social abilities. The baby learns from his mother everything he needs in this first stage and feels more secure if his needs are met. The best and most intensely attended offspring are usually the most prepared to survive and interact with others. No primate or non-Western society raises babies separated from their mother many hours a day. It is the mothers, supported by their tribe, who raise children and babies of different ages. Leaving in groups of many young infants still under the supervision of a single adult and pointing out that this is the most beneficial for their intellectual and social development is something that has only been happening for a few hundred years.
So we could conclude that the human baby would be designed to breastfeed on demand, sleep with his mother, be in his arms all the time. Never, in any animal, the design and instincts of breeding are harmful to her. Are they in the case of human babies? To educate them we must contradict these vital instincts? We will see it.
