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Newborn behaviors and early interactions

Daniel Messinger

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Questions

Neonate: What do studies of neonatal imitation indicate? Based on your observations, can neonatal macaques imitate? What form do neonatal smiles have? Are they due to gas? Are they a reflex? What is a reflex?

What are advantages of breast-feeding? What issues are relevant to promoting breast-feeding?

What is the central issue in investigating the effects of breast-feeding  vs. bottle-feeding? How do infant and mother interact (influence each other) during feeding? How is this and how is it not interaction? [How do your observations of feeding relate to this topic?]

Discuss the Brazelton exam and what it reveals about the individuality of neonates (give examples from film).

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Neonates are newborns

Subjectivity Neonatal imitation - video Characteristics and capacities Evaluation of individuality through the Brazelton

exam– film– Reflexes

Neonatal smiling– video

Feeding

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Neonates are

Weak with limited motor capacities and self-regulatory capabilities– But an impressive array of reflexes and learning

abilities that aid self-preservation Functional but immature sensory capacities Strident expressive abilities such as crying Engage in primitive interactions such as

during feeding

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Subjectivity

The baby, assailed by eyes, ears, nose, skin, and entrails at once. Feels that all is one great blooming buzzing confusion.

William James, 1890Some support: Enhanced neural intermingling

newborn sensations “mixed together like a boulillabaisse” (Maurer & Maurer, 1988).

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Contemporary subjectivity

Some multimodal comprehension– imitation

Continuous, rapid integration Infant is always learning about, interacting

with world.

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Neonatal imitation

Infants between 12 and 21 days

Imitation implies that human neonates can equate their own unseen behaviors with gestures they see others perform.

ANDREW N. MELTZOFF 1 and M. KEITH MOORE 21

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Monkey see, monkey do?

Macaque imitation (Ferrari et al., 2006)?– day 1 “mouth openings elicited a similar matched

behavior (lip smacking)”. confined to a narrow temporal window. Mouth opening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k72WFYv6WMw

Tongue protrusion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9k4Y8x-L6E

Chimps imitate mouth opening (Bard, 2007)

Debate: What exactly does infant do in response to exactly what stimulus?

Human example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2YdkQ1G5QI&NR=1

What does it mean?

Amodal ability Means to explore world Why does it disappear?

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Neonatal Smiling:A Developmental Puzzle

Messinger et al., 2002; Dondi et al., 2007

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What’s known

Endogenous smiles while asleep (REM) Not more frequent after feeding

– Not gas More smiling in premature infants Smiling in microcephalic infant

– Suggests neonatal smiling is subcortical Nothing is known about how neonates smile

– type of smile

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Duchenne > open-mouth smiles

Half of smiles are Duchenne, suggests joy– 52% of neonates, .21 times per minute

Few open mouth smiles (which suggest social arousal), 8%, .02 times per minute

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Smiling issues

Are babies feeling joy (but not much arousal) or is this a muscular synergy?

Why does smiling disappear after the neonatal period and before social smiling?

Neonates smile in non-sleep states, but not as frequently.

Naïve observers perceive neonatal smiles at less than half the rate of coders.

Video

Altricial-------------------Precocial

altricial - young are relatively immobile, lack hair, require adult care;

Precocial – mature sensory and motor apparatus, mobile 

What are humans?

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Tasks of the neonatal period

Infant– Energy conservation– Gain body weight

Born 7 ½ pounds, 20 inches long

Parent– Coordinate schedule

Sleep about sixteen hours a day Eat approximately every three hours In first year, most infants grow about ten inches

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Importance of feeding

Young babies must conserve energy But sucking serves nutrition So they will suck to produce interesting

stimuli– before they will kick to produce the same

stimuli

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Time feeding decreases with age

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Nursing Period (0 - 6 months)

Who breast feeds?– 50 - 60% of mothers– Highest among college educated, high-income

mothers above 30– Lowest among young , less educated, black,

Hispanic, economically disadvantaged MLS

– Resources (La Leche League, J. of H. Lact.)

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Breast-feeding Advantages

Human milk - the nutritional standard– Sterile (vs. formula use in underdeveloped countries)– Confers antibodies to baby– Lactose (from milk) is the primary carbohydrate in the

young infant’s diet.– Too little protein - restricted growth.

For mother, breastfeeding promotes– uterine contraction

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Bottle feeding is ok

Harder to breast-feed when working Formula provides what’s needed for healthy

growth Normal growth - the best index of good

nutrition

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Breastfeeding: Long-term outcomes? Breastfed babies do better than bottle-fed babies -

and the longer they are breastfed, the better they do - on various measures of cognitive achievement and outcome– WISC intelligence at 8 and 9 years of age– Math and reading from 8 to 12 years– High school attainment exams at 15 & 16

• L. John Horwood and David M. Fergusson (1998). Breastfeeding and Later Cognitive and Academic Outcomes. Pediatrics, 101 (1), e9

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Other factors may be responsible

Breastfed babies have other advantages– Better educated mothers– More well to-do familes– Mothers less likely to smoke– Infants a little heavier at birth

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But . .

Breasteeding is still associated with positive outcomes after statistically controlling for other factors

What might be producing the breastfeeding effect?

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Infant sucking – a specialized process Gums make the seal

– Not lips Lower jaw drops to create negative pressure

– Not by by breathing in Tongue expresses milk from back of nipple

to front– Which is why young infants expel solids

Which triggers swallowing

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Feeding is interaction

Bi-directional– Each partner influences the other

Infant: can continue suck or pause sucking Mother: can jiggle or not jiggle nipple

Forerunner of face-to-face interaction and conversational turn-taking?

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Bi-directional detail

Baby pauses elicit mom jiggling nipple should be rare when the baby is sucking

– If jiggle continues, infant least likely to suck

If there is no jiggle, intermediate likelihood of sucking

If jiggle-then-stop, infant is most likely to suck– Experimental data show the jiggle must be brief– Mothers shorten duration of jiggles in 1st 2 weeks

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Moms influence on baby

Mothers are inserting jiggles in cycles of infant sucks and pauses

So infant would start sucking even if mom did not jiggle

But jiggling and then stopping jiggling does encourage suck

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Psychology of early feeding

Early anaclitic model– interaction depends on nourishment

Current interactive view– Breast or bottle doesn’t matter for interaction– Reading baby’s cues– Interactive process

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Paired concepts from Video

Mother and infant Interaction and feeding Sensitivity and matter-of-factness Quantitative and qualitative measures

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Sensory system development

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Sensory capacity

Smell– Turn down the corners of their mouths to bad

smells, such as rotten eggs

– Facial relaxation to sweet smells like chocolate

Taste is similar– Discriminate bitter, neutral, and sweet (Oster)

– Prefer sweet tastes to all others

Evolutionary advantages

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Sensory capacity: Vision

Vision is functional from birth But acuity is 1/25 that of adults

– 20:500,

– blurry but in color

Improves to 20:20 by six months

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Auditory Abilities: Hearing

40-50 Db. Not 10 Sound localization is good Detect one note differences

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Reflexes

Definition: A given stimuli produces a stereotypic response– Relatively invariant

Is smiling a reflex?

Spinal cord control: Present in anencephaly– Primitive reflexes

Sucking and grasping

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Reflex functionality

Survival and protection– Sucking

– Grasping (evolutionary environment)

– Habituation

Development– Bases for later action

Sucking (Piaget)

– But also drop out

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Brazelton Scale (NBAS)

Assesses Four Dimensions of Infant Behavior– Motor Behavior and Reflexes – Physiological Control– Response to Stress– Interactive Behaviors

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Integrated into a

Behavioral "portrait" of the infant, describing the baby's strengths, individuality, adaptive responses and possible vulnerabilities.

These individual differences are used for different purposes– Clinical (neurological)– Research– Parent education

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Behavior depends on state

Links input and output– Though babies can influence behavioral state

through their activities– Self-regulating

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Simplified system

(1) Sleeping; eyes closed throughout feeding session.

(2) Drowsy; eyes may be open but dull and heavy lidded, eyelids fluttering, Gaze does not shift, baby may stare.

(3) Alert: eyes opened, seems to focus on the caretaker or bottle.

(4) Fussy/crying; whimpering or crying during food.

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Most time sleeping

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Mean duration of waking increases

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Brazelton exam overview

Individual differences Best performance State as baseline for behavior Examiner changes behavior Allowing infants to express individual

differences in self-comforting, attentiveness, state-regulation, etc.

Video

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Grasping reflex

Stimulation: Palm of baby’s hand is stroked

Behavior: Baby makes strong fist; can be raised to standing position if both fists are closed around a stick.

Approx. Age of dropping out: 2 months

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Walking Stimulation: Baby is held with bare feet

touching flat surface Behavior: Baby makes step-like motions that

look like well-coordinated walking Approx. Age of dropping out: 2 months

– Why does it drop out?– Under what circumstances can it be seen

even after two months– What does this tell us about developmental process?

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Moro (startle)

Stimulation: Baby is dropped or hear loud noise

Behavior: Baby extends legs, arms, and fingers; arches back; draw back head.

Approx. Age of dropping out: 3 months

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Babinski

Stimulation: Sole of baby’s foot is stroked

Behavior: Baby’s toes fan out; foot twists in

Approx. Age of dropping out: 6-9 months

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Additional neonate readings

Brazelton et al. on neonatal individuality Lester et al. on neonatal individuality through differences in pain cries

Colic as an individual difference that does not predict

Can neonates imitate? (Meltzoff et al.) Causes and consequences of imitation.

By Heyes, C. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 2001 Jun Vol 5(6) 253-261

No compelling evidence that newborns imitate oral gestures. Anisfeld, M; Turkewitz, G; Rose, SA.; Rosenberg, F R.; Sheiber, F J.; Couturier-Fagan, D A.; Ger, J S.; Sommer, Infancy. 2001 Vol 2(1) 111-122

– Multimodal perception studies Wolff

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Additional Feeding Readings

L. John Horwood and David M. Fergusson (1998). Breastfeeding and Later Cognitive and Academic Outcomes. Pediatrics, 101 (1), e9

Kaye & Wells (1980). Rovee-Collier and the energy budget

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Heart rate – classic orienting index

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Heart rate variability vagal tone index of optimal functioning