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Future Directions in the Care of the Full‐Term Newborn
Author(s) -
Snyder David M.
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
birth
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.233
H-Index - 83
eISSN - 1523-536X
pISSN - 0730-7659
DOI - 10.1111/j.1523-536x.1980.tb01544.x
Subject(s) - reciprocity (cultural anthropology) , psychosocial , gaze , psychology , developmental psychology , medicine , nursing , social psychology , psychiatry , psychoanalysis
Babies’abilities to achieve mutual gaze with their caregivers, to find the breast and nurse successfully, and to be comforted, are powerful releasers of parental warmth and attachment. Any complication in the newborn period which alters babies’opportunity to achieve reciprocity places the parent‐infant system at risk. Our knowledge of the psychosocial consequences of newborn care practices is as vital as knowledge of purely biological and physical sciences. We must reshape our care of newborns in light of what we know now about the opportunities and vulnerabilities inherent in the first days of the infant's life.