Translated interview (translation by Pat and Ake Torngren)
Marit Olanders interviews Dr Bergman

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The mother’s body is the only natural, healthy environment for a newborn baby

Nils Bergman says he would like to place the breastfeeding of small babies in its wider context, and his point of departure is the biological perspective.  He says that the behaviour of the baby, is determined by its environment, and the environment in which it is placed can have a positive or negative outcome.  The correct environment for the baby is the mother’s body, and he emphasises that the baby is totally dependant on being kept in this optimal environment all the time.

Protest despair response.

Failure to be kept in contact with the mother’s skin, maintains Bergman, is not only a “non behaviour” but also creates a state of pathophysiological stress.  This is true for healthy full-term babies, as well as those born prematurely.  As with other mammals that are moved from their natural environment, human babies react with protest and despair.  In the protest phase, the baby tries intensely to reestablish contact with its correct environment, the mother, usually by crying.  If that fails, the baby becomes too tired to cry anymore.  Instead it lapses into a state of despair in which the individual withdraws in order to conserve energy and concentrate on survival. The result of this is a lower body temperature and heartbeat, while at the same time there are greatly increased levels of stress hormones, because a baby separated from its mother, is in fact stressed. When the baby is returned to its correct environment, which is the mother, the temperature and heart rate quickly return to normal levels. 

Human babies are biologically extremely immature when they are born.  According to researchers, the reason that they are born so immature is the fact that the width of the birth canal through the mother’s pelvis was reduced when our ancestors started walking upright on two legs. At the same time, due to human development following early tool usage, the brain volume increased.  The evolutionary solution was that babies began to be born earlier and therefore more immature.

Despite their immaturity, human babies in their proper environment, which is being placed skin-to-skin on the mother’s chest, can take care of themselves, says Nils Bergman.  He refers inter alia to Ann-Marie Widström’s research, as well as the findings of other researchers, showing that healthy newborn babies without any prompting and without assistance, can, if placed on the mother, crawl up to her breast, find the nipple, latch on and start to breastfeed.

 

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