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

page 4

The development of the brain is benefited and normalised by skin contact.

The greatest advantage of the baby being kept skin-to-skin with the mother for 24 hours a day, and being breastfed freely, is the development of the brain, Nils Bergman points out.  A baby is born with a maximum number of synapses (that is, potential connections) between the nerve cells. Neurological pathways become established between the synapses that are used, and unused synapses die off.  By 6 months of age, all the baby’s brain cells are fully developed. After that, it is the neural pathways which become the important determining factor in the quality of life that the individual will experience.  These neural pathways can be stress-related or pleasure-related paths, depending on the environment in which the baby resides – closeness to the mother, or separation from her.

If the baby is forced to use the stress-related paths in infancy, the pleasure-related paths are pruned away.  The stress-driven neurological pathways then become dominant for the rest of the life of the individual.  We talk about the plasticity of the brain, and the fact that the brain can compensate for various losses, but this does not apply to these very early and fundamental nerve pathways, which become permanently set in the brain. The brain is a bio-social organ.  In this context its function is to create and maintain relationships.  If it not allowed to do that right from the beginning, dissociation occurs.  This leaves a legacy of defective mental health which affects the ability of the individual to act flexibly in different situations, explains Nils Bergman.

In the first 8 weeks of life, skin-to-skin contact is the most important stimulant for the development of the brain.  Nils Bergman says this is an essential requirement if the fundamental structures of the brain are to be developed in a healthy way.  After this requirement, the most important stimuli that the brain needs for normal development are eye contact, and the physical need to be carried by the parents.  Sometimes babies have to go through painful procedures or stressful situations, and at such times it is even more important for the baby to have skin contact with the mother.

“When my own children were small, and had middle-ear infections, they slept best if they were allowed to lie on my chest.  I’m sure that was good for them in several ways”, Nils Bergman says. “What we experience during birth and the following weeks, affects us for the rest of our lives.  Nowadays we are bringing up children in a manner which is essentially pathological.”

In Sweden one often hears the advice given that babies be put down to lie on the floor in order to develop their back muscles.  Nils Bergman emphasises, “What is commonly done is not necessarily normal, or what should be done”.  A baby who is carried, develops in a very different way from a baby who is left lying down.  The physical differences relating to where the baby is placed, are not in or of themselves of primary importance, he says, it is the final outcome, optimal brain development resulting from being carried by the parents, that matters.

Nils Bergman bases his reasoning on a review of Allan Schore’s research in the Infant Mental Health Journal, 2001, and he compares this with the manner in which we care for our newborns in the field of Western neonatology today.  He states that practically all of us who have been born and have grown up in the Western World in the last decades, have been prevented from reaching our full potential.

 

 

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