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According to Alan Schore, assistant clinical professor in the department of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at UCLA School of Medicine, a major conclusion of the last decade of developmental neuroscience research is that the infant brain is designed to be developed by the environment it encounters.1 In other words, babies are born with a certain set of genetics, but they must be activated through child development - early experience and interaction.

Schore believes the most crucial child development component of these earliest interactions is the primary caregiver - the mother. "The child's first relationship, the one with the mother, acts as a template, as it permanently molds the individual's capacities to enter into all later emotional relationships." Others agree. The first months of an infant's life constitute what is known as a critical period - a time in a child's development when events are imprinted in the nervous system.

"Hugs and kisses during these critical periods make those neurons grow and connect properly with other neurons." Says Dr. Arthur Janov

What are bonding experiences?

The acts of holding, rocking, singing, feeding, gazing, kissing, and other nurturing behaviors involved in caring for infants and young children are bonding experiences. Factors crucial to bonding include time together (in childhood, quantity does matter!), face-to-face interactions, eye contact, physical proximity, touch, and other primary sensory experiences such as smell, sound, and taste. Scientists believe the most important factor in creating attachment is positive physical contact (e.g., hugging, holding, and rocking). It should be no surprise that holding, gazing, smiling, kissing, singing, and laughing all cause specific neurochemical activities in the brain. These neurochemical activities lead to normal organization of brain systems that are responsible for attachment.

The most important relationship in a child's life is the attachment to his or her primary caregiver - optimally, the mother. This is due to the fact that this first relationship determines the biological and emotional 'template' for all future relationships. Healthy attachment to the mother built by repetitive bonding experiences during infancy provides the solid foundation for future healthy relationships. In contrast, problems with bonding and attachment can lead to a fragile biological and emotional foundation for future relationships.

When are these windows of opportunity?

Timing is everything. Bonding experiences lead to healthy attachments and healthy attachment capabilities when they are provided in the earliest years of life. During the first three years of life, the human brain develops to 90 percent of adult size and puts in place the majority of systems and structures that will be responsible for all future emotional, behavioral, social, and physiological functioning during the rest of life. There are critical periods during which bonding experiences must be present for the brain systems responsible for attachment to develop normally. These critical periods appear to be in the first year of life, and are related to the capacity of the infant and caregiver to develop a positive interactive relationship.

I knew about most of this, even though I haven't been a mother of a baby in a long time. But the more I read about what Libra is doing to her kids, the sicker I get:

Attachment" is the strong affectional bond that under normal conditions develops between an infant and his primary caretaker-usually his mother. The most critical period for the attachment process is the first few months of life, but attachment is not securely formed until about two years of age. A child's social, psychological, and emotional development is built upon the foundation of his earliest attachment. If the process of establishing that attachment is disrupted during its crucial stages, the child is at risk of becoming "detached," or emotionally ungrounded and incapable of building relationships based on trust. Even after age two, prolonged separation from the primary caretaker can have negative long-term effects on a child's emotional well-being and his ability to establish trust in personal relationships.

The attachment process can be disrupted in a number of ways. For example, if the primary caretaker is unresponsive, neglectful, or abusive, then a strong attachment may never form. Separation can also affect attachment, especially if prolonged, repeated separation from the primary caretaker occurs before attachment is securely formed.

Most experts strongly recommend against placing an infant under the age of one in full-time daycare at all. The recommendations are less sweepingly uniform in the case of infants between the ages of one and two, but even for that age group expert sentiment generally runs against full-time daycare.

The problem, of course, is that perfectly loving and well-meaning parents are driven by economic pressure to place infants as young as two weeks into full-time daycare. More commonly, of course, an infant starts daycare at the age of two or three months, when the mother's maternity leave from her job is used up.

What this means is that during a critical period in the attachment process, very young infants are being separated from their primary caretakers for the entire day, at least five days a week. During most of the child's waking hours, he will have no contact at all with the person or persons with whom he must develop a strong and stable emotional bond (usually, of course, his parents). This fact cannot help but interfere with the attachment process. (This is NOTHING compared to Libras separation from HER kids- this talks about day-time hours 5 days a week, Libra is gone for 3 months solid)

Disruption or disturbance of attachment can occur at any time during the first ten or eleven years of a child's life, but it takes more drastic and traumatic separation events to disrupt an otherwise stable attachment for an older child. Because attachment is not firmly established before age two, however, it takes less to disrupt it, and the consequences of such disruption are likely to be more severe and more long-lasting than in an older child.