As the world prioritizes physical distance to detain or slow down the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19), a new study from Florida Atlantic University shows that physical contact between mother and infant is essential for optimal neurological development, maturation and regulation during infancy. Mother-infant dyads show high oxytocin levels and are less impacted by stress, which…
by Ibone Olza, perinatal psychiatrist. Dear patient, Thinking about you, I realize you might be a mother who has been separated from her infant. Or perhaps a father. I know of some cases where both, mother and father, are going through coronavirus infection, isolated, without their newborn. Maybe mother is in the hospital, alone, and…
by Ibone Olza, perinatal psychiatrist. Dear pregnant mother, Several close Friends have asked me to write this letter to you. Perhaps you are surprised that I call you “mother” if you are expecting your first child, but the truth is, I believe we are mothers from the moment we accept carrying a baby inside…
Finland has taken one more step in its policies to support families, not only to make it reasonable for them to have children, but also to favor their care. Let us not forget that the more intelligent a species is, the longer the exterogestational dependent period. Care of the young during those early years is…
A study published in the latest edition of Archives of Women’s Health has found that instrumental births (those requiring forceps, vacuum extraction, etc.) and cesarean sections are related to a higher number of psychological difficulties after birth – ranging from lack of adjustment to motherhood to post-traumatic stress disorder. To put these conclusions into perspective,…
According to some sources, when a woman in Sparta (Ancient Greece) hadn’t gone into labour after nine months, other women would go to her house to berate her almost violently. They would hurl all the grievances in her face that they had kept to themselves during the pregnancy and the heated exchange usually triggered the…
Obstetricians… Two of the mothers I visited today at the breastfeeding clinic recounted their birth stories to me. Though both had been similar in the workings (hospital births, vaginal, no epidural, some synthetic oxytocin), each mother had a completely different story to tell. For one, it had been a wonderful, empowering experience. For…
The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes a “positive childbirth experience” as a significant end point for all women undergoing labor. It defines a positive childbirth experience as one that fulfils or exceeds a woman’s prior personal and sociocultural beliefs and expectations, including giving birth to a healthy baby in a clinically and psychologically safe environment…
Newborns have a series of highly conserved neuroendcrine behaviours that we see as the “breast-crawl”, when babies placed skin to skin on their mothers immadiately after birth crawl to the breast, attach and suckle. This behaviour has been called Widström’s 9 Stages of Newborn Behavior. A recent study by Widstrom´s group found a strong inverse…
By Ibone Olza, MD, PhD, perinatal psychiatrist Babies feel, listen, perceive, know, understand, are moved, express, communicate. Babies love. They give. Give smiles, caresses, gazes, babbles. They gift us. They move us. They fill us. Babies are a transforming presence for those that love, care, and live with them. However, the modern world denies…
