Correlation Between Perception of Birth and Maternal Infa...

As reported previously, the strongest influence on maternal infant bonding (MFA) in the regression analysis was a woman‘s perception of her birth experience (POBS) as revealed by an R-squared of 0.055, p < 0.01, which represents 5.5% of the proportion of variation in maternal infant bonding. Furthermore, the correlation analysis between POBS and MFA demonstrated a correlation of 0.234, p< 0.01. In addition, a notable finding was the POBS mean of 107.07 and SD of 18.92, which is a mode...

 The Importance of the Tribe in Parenting

Birth—before the advent of modern medicine—often resulted in the mother’s death. Though no one knows the true figure, estimates run as high as 1 in 8. Tribes with females who could quickly relate to and trust nearby females were more likely to survive. Older females, with the wisdom of their prior birthing experiences, could care for new mothers. Women with kids could provide precious milk to a new baby if the birth mother died. Sharing and its accompanying social interactions thus prov...

 The Romantic View of Birth

You're lying in bed in the labor room of the hospital and you're about as exhausted, as utterly worn out, as you'll ever be. Giving birth is this peculiar combination of determination and compulsion. It's you pushing, and you push in a more concentrated, focused way than you've ever done anything, but in another sense you don't decide or try to push or even want to. You are just swept away by the action. It's like a cross between running a marathon and having the most enormous. shattering, ir...

 Altricial Versus Precocial Infants

Not all babies are the same. Human babies are rather helpless, interested mostly in food, sleeping, eating, defecating, and comfort. Compare human babies with newborn deer. When fawns are born, they immediately stand up and soon are able to run away from danger. Scientists call these two types of babies in the animal kingdom altricial and precocial. Altricial infants are born helpless, usually after a short gestation or pregnancy, and their brains tend to be not quite finished. Precocial babi...