Imprinting: filial attachment – infant to their mother. And the mother’s attachment to the infant. Imprinting responses of the infant elicit nurturing responses of the mother.

Another process in attachment  bonding.

Bonding has its own critical period (not the same as imprininting) – It is much smaller

–  The critical period for bonding is in late pregnancy and several hours and days after birth –         For humans, some say its hours, some say its weeks, some say it is longer.  Controversy over how long this critical period of bonding lasts.

All pregnant mammals prepare for birth in the last stages of pregnancy  They separate from their group, find a secluded birthing place, reduce activity, and at the time of birth, they give birth, clean them and provide nursing.

Monkeys hold their infant close to their chest in the first 24 hours, then nurses after.

Data from animals comes from 2 sources

  1. Separation studies: mostly with rats
  • Take the pups from the mother after birth, and then you return them after various intervals. Findings: if you wait 2 days, you get low levels of behaviour (she is lactating, but not the same levels of bonding. Not as enthusiastically)
  • Half the litter dies b/c of absence of care, and the rest have weakened conditions

If you wait 5 days, there is rejection. The mother is past her critical period, they will end up dying.

If you leave the pup with the mother for a few hours, then bring them back weeks later, the mother will still accept them  mother has bonded in this period. (mice)

(Sheep) Separate the lamb and keep away for 24 hours, the mother will reject. Goats will reject as well 2 hours after birth.

  1. Adoption studies:

Rats that are parturitual (sp) (in the early stages of motherhood) will accept a foster pup. The closer the mother rat is to her own delivery time, the more likely she is to accept the pup. –        Same with sheeps goats and monkeys

  • If a mother dies, they take the offspring to mothers who recently gave birth.

Bonding is always the strongest right after birthing, and it seems to drop very quickly. The critical period is mediated by estrogen, and was seen in adoption studies.

  • The findings were if you transferred blood from a patricidal animal to another particular, or another male, or another female, the animal will foster newborns (an increase in estrogen levels) – Estrogen levels increase in response to the infants dependent behaviour. –    Gazing behaviour elicits an increase in estrogen in the mother.

Mother has a mothering hormone, but she requires an environmental stimulus.

  • The infant facilitates the mother bonding, but they are different processes with different critical periods are different.

The CP for bonding is shorter than the CP for imprinting  would not be in the interest of the infant to imprint too quickly, because the mother might not survive.

  • More relatable in primal times when mothers would die during childbirth.

In the interest of the mother’s fitness, she needs to know that she is raising her own offspring –           She has to know it is her own offspring, so this is instilled in her by natural selection.

  • At one time, women and men lived in a commune lifestyle, where the menstrual cycle was synchronized, and births would occur at the same time  raising the question of who is the father of which child.

      When females live together, they tend to synchronize their menstrual cycles.

People

Clinical psychologists and psychiatrists show that mothers go through primary maternal preoccupation  withdraw from others, seem preoccupied, want to be physically and psychologically by themselves for birthing.

  • A similar bonding process than animals.
  • When children are put into incubators, the mothers have no contact with them, and found that premature infants who were in incubators were at higher risk for both infant and child abuse, and a greater frequency for ‘failure to thrive”  child does not mature at a normal rate.
  • Benign neglect: no physical or psychological abuse, but the infant is not getting what they need.

Led to:

  1. Follow up studies
  2. Retrospective studies: where children were abused or neglected, and go into the history to see if there was neglect from mother b/c of early separation

Separation from mother to birth increases the likelihood of mother/child problematic relationships 3-4x more frequently.

–       Descriptive rather than experimental studies. Need to look at other factors as well.

Ex. Its not separation that causes this neglect but for example  post partum depression.

A lot of things have to be controlled, especially for other factors.

  • Cannot separate mothers from children, but you can ADD contact.
  • The control group just goes through the normal hospital procedure  20 minutes/ 3 -4 hours per 2 days in a hospital.

      Infants that were separated from mother for 12 hours were unhappy, and the mothers were not happy either.

In studies that added time in the beginning, and over time DID show improved bonding.

  • The mothers who had access to their kids had longer breastfeeding sessions, made more eye contact, engaged in more soothing, infant fondling, kissing etc.
  • One study followed up showed that children who were not separated used less order imperatives.
  • The “pop-study effect”: when an issue is hot, there are lots of studies that are done, and the ones that show effects are more likely to be studied.

Kennel & Klaus: made this discovery of changing hospital procedures.

  • Kennel was the pediatrician who separated the babies from their mothers in the 50s

Also anthropological data: using tribal societies

  • Birthing practices used the Yale human relations files: people in Yale cross indexed information on all tribal cultures in existence and used it as a reference point.
  • 150 societies in where birthing information and rituals surrounding birthing is available, and all of them but 3 had rituals where they isolate the mothers WITH the child for a few days.

Also a study by Eiksbelt (sp) who did a study of tribal studies with cultures that practice infanticide. Found that all the studies that practiced infanticide did so because they did not have enough resources to provide for their infants.

  • The mother did not have contact with the infant if she knew that they were not going to survive.

Evidence of bonding for infants who are mixed up at birth

 Weeks or months later that they gave the wrong infants to the wrong parents

 The mothers were more upset and unbelieving, and reluctant, in denial. The mothers were ones who have bonded to this child.

One implication is the adoptive situation

  • If early contact is helpful in early bonding, then adoption should be more complicated for females than male bonding.

Are adoptions more problematic for mothers than fathers?

  • Significantly more stepfathers claim to have more paternal feelings for their child than mothers claim to have maternal feelings for their child.
  • Parental soliciting scale: 14 scale. Given to 170 adults who were adopted

 How would you rate your mothers and father’s parenting behaviours towards you as you grew up?

 Mothers were rated significantly higher (more maternal) than fathers were rated paternal on most of the items for BIRTH CHILDREN

 The adopted children got the reverse, but it was not significant. –   But there was a difference in mothers and fathers

  • The fathers could be making up for what the mothers were not doing
  • Effects are stronger for the items that pertain to day-to-day socialization

Differences where the effect was least, was generous with material things, concerned with feelings and welfare.

  • The mothers are the ones who are less maternal on the items that referred to day-to-day interactions.
  • Bonding is what allows the mother to live day to day with the child.

It is encouraged to have early adoptions to facilitate the bonding.

Estrogen injections can actually lead to lactation and the critical period of bonding.

  • As long as you get attention from any conspecific, you will imprint unto other people, including parents.