The Evolved Nest's components

ON-REQUEST BREASTFEEDING - occurs for several years.

What to do:

· Provide the breast whenever the baby indicates rooting and other signals of need for the breast. This is part of responsive parenting described above.

· Don’t make the baby wait or stress hormones start to flow.

· Breastfeed for at least a year if not 4 or 5 as in our species-normal societies.

Why?

Breastfeeding frequency. Mammalian milk is species specific for each of the over 4,000 mammalian species (AAP, 2005). Human milk is of the thin, rather than thick, variety, which is related to frequent ingestion or at least suckling (on average every 20 minutes for infants as recorded by anthropologists; see Hewlett & Lamb, 2005; Konner & Worthman, 1980). 

Breastfeeding length. In the ancestral context, breastfeeding took place on average from 2-5 years (weaning at age 4 on average; Konner, 2005; 2010). These patterns are still evident in aboriginal populations little influenced by outside cultures. According to Dettwyler’s (1995) review (see table 3) humans should be breastfeeding much longer than they are, based on what other primates do in relation to offspring maturation schedule. The end of the range, age 6-7, is when the immune system reaches adult levels and much of the brain is completed (Parham, 2004). 

Human mothers, who provided immunity through the placenta, continue to provide immunity after birth, first with colostrum immediately after birth and thereafter with breast milk. Although infants have gastric enzymes for digesting their mother’s colostrum and milk, digestive enzymes for other foods do not develop for several months. Breast milk abounds with infection fighting agents that foster immune and digestive health in the young child.  Specific to the environment in which the mother and infant find themselves, mammalian milk produces antibodies for various infective agents (e.g., Slusser & Powers, 1997).

Resources

See The Evolved Nest's Resource page.

See an extensive list of Breastfeeding Resources here.

POSITIVE TOUCH like carrying and rocking promote neurobiological health.

What to do:

•  Carry, hold, rock your baby as much as possible. 

•  Stay physically close 24/7.

•  Practice skin-to-skin contact as much as you can.

•  For older children, play with them in whole body ways. Cuddles and roughhouse!

Why?

Human babies are much more social and malleable than are other animals where most studies of touch have taken place. Animal studies show:

•  Losing contact with the parent is distressing. 

•  Even a few minutes of separation in rat babies causes lifelong changes in stress response (Levine, 2005), which when mild and graded can help the offspring cope with the stress of separation (Katz et al., 2009). 

•  Multiple systems are regulated by the presence of the mother and quickly become dysregulated when she is physically absent (Hofer, 1994). 

•  Physical separation activates painful emotions (Ladd, Owens, & Nemeroff, 1996; Panksepp, 2003; Sanchez, Ladd, & Plotsky, 2001) 

•  Monkeys isolated from adults when babies spend their lives with deficits of 5-HIAA, a main metabolite of serotonin (critical for intelligence and happiness, social behavior) (e.g., Kalin, 1999; Suomi, 2006).

Resources

See The Evolved Nest's Resource page.

POSITIVE SOCIAL CLIMATE: Need for sense of BELONGING and support

What to do:

•  After birth, plan a “laying in” where other mothers wait on you and your baby. This was common practice in traditional societies.

•  Get a community of support together for you and your child (ideally other adult relatives are supportive of helping provide the evolved nest). 

Why?

Human mothers evolved to have a built-in safety net of other adult support (Hrdy, 2009). Supportive social contact is known to be a positive influence during birthing and post-natal mother-child communication (Klaus & Kennel, 1976), and in fact, three attentive adults (parents and/or alloparents) appear to be optimal for children to thrive (Sagi et al., 1995; van Ijzendoorn, Sagi, & Lambermon, 1992). 

Resources

See The Evolved Nest's Resource page.

RESPONSIVENESS TO NEEDS AND CUES

What to do:

•  Learn the cues your baby gives to signal needs. Skin-to-skin contact is especially good for this in the early hours, days and months of life.

•  Learn to move in with a response before your baby cries—in order to keep baby in optimal arousal. Otherwise your baby will practice becoming distressed as part of his personality. 

Why?

After nine months of gestational synchrony, human mothers and neonates under natural conditions typically move into an interactional synchrony of sound and movement within the first hours after birth (e.g., Condon & Sander, 1974; Papousek & Papousek, 1992). Caregivers act as external regulators of psychological and biological development (Hofer, 1994; Schore, 2001). Optimal human development is thus rooted in social synchrony with others who help the child maintain optimal arousal levels (Reddy, 2008; Schore, 1994; Trevarthen, 2005). 

In early life, the brain is forming its emotional circuitry and structures in collaboration with caregivers (for reviews, see Schore, 1994; 2001). Responsive caregivers, in mutual co-regulation, shape the infant brain for self-regulation within and across multiple sensory systems (e.g., respiratory, hormonal), influencing multiple levels of functioning (Hofer, 1994) and establishing emotional patterns that promote confidence and mental health. 

For example, responsive care with co-regulated communication patterns is related to good vagal tone, which is critical for well functioning digestive, cardiac, respiratory, and immune as well as emotional systems (e.g., Donzella et al., 2000; Propper et al 2008; Stam et al., 1997). Non-responsive parenting leads to poor vagal tone (e.g., Calkins, Smith, Gill & Johnson, 1998; Porter, 2003). Other systems are also affected negatively. For example, having a depressed mother (whose nurturing responses are limited) alters the functioning of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA; e.g., Beatson & Taryan, 2003; see Dawson, Ashman & Carver, 2000, for a review). 

BUT: Isn’t it normal for babies to cry? Not in our ancestral context. That would have been quite unwise. Unfortunately, a common cultural misperception is that letting babies cry themselves to sleep represents adequate parenting (Gethin & MacGregor, 2009). When babies are left to cry, with no parental attempt at timely comforting, their brains are flooded with high levels of potentially neurotoxic stress hormones such as cortisol (Blunt Bugental, Martorell, & Barraza, 2003; Gunnar & Donzella, 2002). 

•  Opioids, which promote feelings of wellbeing, diminish during human sadness (Zubieta et al., 2003) and psychic pain circuits are aroused (Eisenberger et al., 2003; Panksepp, 2003). Stress response systems can be wired permanently for oversensitivity and overreactivity (Anisman et al., 1998), leading to predispositions for clinical depression and anxiety (Barbas et al., 2003; de Kloet et al., 2005; see Watt & Panksepp, 2009, for a review), poor mental and physical health outcomes, and accelerated aging and mortality (for a review, Preston & de Waal, 2003). 

•  Unrelieved distress in early life reduces the expression of GABA genes, leading to anxiety and depression disorders as well as increased use of alcohol for stress relief (Caldji et al., 2000; Hsu et al., 2003). 

•  When emotional dysregulation becomes chronic, it forms the foundation for further psychopathologies (Cole, Michel & Teti, 1994), especially depression. 

•  Infant emotional dysregulation is related to subsequent mental illness, including a propensity for violence (Davidson, Putnam & Larson, 2000). 

•  Stress that leads to “insecure attachment” disrupts emotional functioning, compromises social abilities and can promote a permanent bias towards self-preservation (Henry & Wang, 1998; also see Schore, 2009, for a review).

Resources

See The Evolved Nest's Resource page.

Attachment Parenting International

Kindred World

Kindred Media

HEALING PRACTICES

No one is perfect. Humans are fallible. We make mistakes, whatever age we are. Sometimes parents make mistakes. Sometimes children live for years with primal wounds from those mistakes. 

All of us need regular healing of unexpressed or gripping emotions like resentment, anger, grief and sadness. We need to let go of our emotions or else they can inhibit our ability to be present to others, including our children. They can make us do things we regret later.

Healing practices can mend a wounded self or a weakened relationship. So it is good to build routines for relational healing as well as self healing.

Self healing might be needed when one notices distraction and lack of focus (“something is bothering me”) or when one feels emotionally detached from a situation where it would be expected otherwise. In a relationship, signals include bitterness, resentment or contempt, or withdrawal and distrust. One learns to nip these in the bud before they get deep roots and completely destroy the relationship. 

What to do

Individuals can practice self-healing, though it may be better started with some help from a therapist or patient friends. Practices include journaling about one’s day or one’s feelings (one might need to practice this for a while if one has learned to “stuff” feelings away). Creative approaches include drawing or painting or singing or dancing out one’s feelings (in safe ways),. Even yelling (so as not to hurt self or others) can help, like yelling out the car window by a freeway that muffles the sound. Sometimes one has to get angry/sad to let go of long hidden old, old wounds.

To heal relationships, we take up practices that participants agree on. 

For parents and children, play acting can be a way to work through unmet needs, resentments or fears. Stuffed animals or other toys can be used. Parents should let children lead the way. (See the book, Playful Parenting by Cohen.) Sometimes, playing chase or wrestling can release the feelings and bring about connection. 

Creative arts can also be helpful if the child is in charge of the expressions. 

For adult relationships, play acting can work too. Whatever leads the partners to mutual laughter is always beneficial. Giving each other the benefit of the doubt and forgiving each other a dozen times a day can help lower expectations that the other is supposed to perfectly do one’s bidding.

Community healing practices include restorative justice among all community members affected by a harmful action. This can take some time, but restoring trust among members is vital for successful cooperation on subsequent projects. 

Traditional communities use drumming and dancing and losing oneself in music and chants as a way to let go of emotion. Some concert experiences also offer this release.