The emotions that the mother lives during pregnancy affect the pregnant baby in one way or another. By living in a stressful situation, your body reacts by releasing hormones that reach the baby through the placenta, which is associated with various developmental disorders.
But recent research has just revealed that this effect could be reversed, because petting the newborn heals the effects of stress on pregnancy. Maternal caresses during the first weeks of life have such a powerful effect on the baby that they can modify the effects of stress after birth.
When the mother's stress builds up and reaches a high degree in pregnancy, it affects the woman and of course also the baby, being able to alter the way in which the child responds to stress situations in the future.
It causes changes at the physiological level, causing a reduction in the future activity of the genes dedicated to generating a response to stress.
The stress that the mother suffers in pregnancy has been associated with the fact that some children have a greater susceptibility to show more fear or anger in situations they cannot control, related to behavioral abnormalities and anxiety disorders in adolescence and adulthood.
The power of caresses
But British researchers have studied the behavior of mothers and their children who have participated in the Wirral Study on Child Health and Development to determine that caresses could modify genetic activity.
They noted that the relationships between depression symptoms during pregnancy and subsequent childhood emotions of fear and anger, as well as the cardiac response to stress at seven months, vary depending on how often the mother had caressed the baby in the head, back, legs and arms during the first weeks of life.
The study is ongoing because they intend to find out if maternal caresses continue to influence later stages of development.
Mom's caresses have a surprising effect on the children, mainly during the first weeks of life in which a very special attachment relationship is established between them. So much that they are able to heal the effects of stress in pregnancy.
