Your baby's movements when you're near – an evolutionary craving for protection and nurture?

Your newborn baby is able to recognise your face, voice and smell and those of other familiar people they see often.^[1] You might also notice your baby react by moving their arms and legs when you are close by – this too is linked to their social and emotional development.

Your baby’s brain began to develop in the womb, with areas of the brain linked with reflexes, movement and essential functions such as breathing and heart rate developing before birth.

The primitive brain that your baby is born with involves the ‘oldest’ structures in evolutionary terms, such as the brainstem and sensorimotor cortex.

These are the parts of the brain most active in your newborn baby. Your baby’s priority is the internal regulation of body systems, soon followed by adaption to external conditions, which is largely managed by emotional responses.

Your baby will actively seek out interaction with others, turn away from others if overwhelmed and freeze when they feel at risk. Emotions are first and foremost a guide for actions, about going forwards towards things or going away from them.^[2]

Moving in response to your proximity is an invitation for interaction and part of how your baby learns about how loving interactions work.

As babies depend entirely on caregivers for survival, researchers believe there is a universal craving for protection and nurture as part of the evolutionary need to protect immaturity.

It is particularly important for your baby to learn about the people who nurture, protect and take care of them and to try to understand how this care or love works.

Cycles of interaction between your baby and their surroundings begin very early. Your baby’s movements in response to your proximity influence your response, and then in turn your response influences your baby, in a repeating cycle. Individual differences in the ways that babies act lead to differences in the way that parents act.

Early regulation involves you responding to the emotions and consequential movements of your baby, sometimes called, ‘feeling with your baby’, and then responding in a non-verbal way, with face, tone of voice and touch.

This reinforces the cycle of interaction and begins to lays down the map of your baby’s understanding.^[3]

In the next few months, your baby will begin to explore other ways to respond to you and to initiate interaction; they will continue to move when you are close by, but will also start to smile or make sounds in order to attract your attention.

References:

[1] Addyman, C (2020) The laughing baby: The extraordinary science behind what makes babies happy. London: Unbound. 

[2] Gerhardt, S (2004) Why love matters; how affection shapes a baby’s brain. Routledge.

[3] Gopnik, A (2009) The Philosophical Baby: What children’s minds tell us about truth, love and the meaning of life. London: The Bodley Head.

Your baby's movements when you're near – an evolutionary craving for protection and nurture?

Your newborn baby is able to recognise your face, voice and smell and those of other familiar people they see often.[1] You might also notice your baby react by moving their arms and legs when you are close by – this too is linked to their social and emotional development.

Your newborn baby is able to recognise your face, voice and smell and those of other familiar people they see often.^[1] You might also notice your baby react by moving their arms and legs when you are close by – this too is linked to their social and emotional development.