Soon after a baby is born, it's getting more common these days for the father or non-birthing parent to be encouraged to put the newborn directly on their chest. This skin-to-skin contact is often termed "kangaroo care," as it mimics the way kangaroos provide warmth and security to babies.
Mothers have been encouraged to give kangaroo care for decades now and many do so instinctively after giving birth; it has been shown to help mum and baby connect and with breastfeeding.
So what does the evidence say about kangaroo care for other parents?
A growing body of research shows kangaroo care brings benefits for both baby and parent.
One study that measured cortisol (a stress hormone) levels and blood pressure in new fathers found: "Fathers who held their baby in skin-to-skin contact for the first time showed a significant reduction in physiological stress responses."
Another study in Taiwan involving fathers and neonates (newborn babies) found benefits to bonding and attachment: "These study results confirm the positive effects of skin-to-skin contact interventions on the infant care behavior of fathers in terms of exploring, talking, touching, and caring and on the enhancing of the father-neonate attachment."
[...] This study found kangaroo care helps fathers connect and bond with their baby in an intensive care environment. This had a positive impact on fathers' confidence and self-esteem. As one father told us: "I think after all the stress, when I have skin-to-skin I can actually calm down a little bit. I sit down and relax, I can cuddle my child and it's just a little bit of a happy place for me as well as him to calm down, not to do any work all the time, not to be stressed out. There's other things on my mind all the time but it's time to relax and turn off a little bit."
Another told us: "She nuzzled around a bit, kind of got my smell I guess and then literally fell asleep. It was great. It was very comforting for both I guess for her and myself."
[...] One study noted dads can sometimes feel like a bystander on the periphery when a newborn arrives.
Journal References:
DOI: 10.1111/apa.14184
DOI: 10.1111/jocn.16405
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 06 2022, @11:47AM (6 children)
I didn't think we were allowed to notice real, biological differences between men and women. And, does this "instinct" exist in men pretending to be women?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 06 2022, @11:55AM (1 child)
There are obvious biological differences here, but that's probably not one of them.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 06 2022, @12:59PM
It would be interesting to compare modern families with ancient and prehistoric families. I think the industrial age changed family life a lot. The most obvious change is, Grandma and Grandpa are shipped off to old-folk warehouses as soon as possible, instead of keeping them in the spare room to use as baby sitters. Also, Baby is generally kept in the spare room, instead of sleeping within arm's reach of Mom and Dad. When everyone lived in a one-room hovel, Baby, Big Sister, Big Brother, the dog and the cat, and probably the neighbor's kids were always within arm's reach!
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 06 2022, @12:29PM
What I've noticed is, years later, you'll probably have a baby pretending to be adult.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday September 06 2022, @08:06PM (2 children)
A non-birthing parent could also be the mother's wife or the child's adopted parents.
The takeaway for me is that the oxytocin chemistry that happens naturally between mother and child can work with others. I had assumed that, but it's good to back it up with data.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday September 06 2022, @08:24PM (1 child)
The term could also cover the biological mother, where a surrogate has given birth to the child.
But from a quick scan of TFA, the research they're summarising seems to refer exclusively to fathers.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2022, @12:59AM
Well, despite all the noise the others make, probably 98% of the parenting population is mothers and fathers.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday September 06 2022, @12:23PM (4 children)
So, the skin-to-skin contact is good for the father's stress levels. Does that mean that fathers matter now? Well, knock me over with a feather.
Expressing physical affection for your kids (hugs, kisses, pats on the back, etc) has always been important for forming an emotional connection, but it hasn't ever been encouraged for fathers to do with their kids. They've always been treated as vaguely menacing and only at best minimally useful for bringing home an income. Or showing affection was frowned upon as coddling your kids.
That's why it's shocking that these researchers could even get their study results published--it goes against decades of both macho- and feminist orthodoxy.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 06 2022, @01:23PM (3 children)
Of course the usians continue to remain oblivious to the fact they are not the entire world and their culture is not necessary one the rest of this world jumps to pick as a model.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday September 06 2022, @04:48PM (2 children)
You're rather mis-attributing that culture to America when it's rather the culture of a trans-national elite that impose it all over the world. It began as a global financial system that took over after WWII, and gained total supremacy when the Soviet Union collapsed. Since then it has been hijacked to inject a common social and environmental agenda along with the financial one (look up Blackrock and their ESG investing for a solid example of how that's happening).
In other words your panning Americans trails quite far behind the times. You're ascribing values to national character when "national character" has been rendered quaint and irrelevant by political and social elites who own as much and control as much in SE Asia as they do in Europe or the US.
That trans-national ethos is that to which I am reacting. Thus far, they have not permitted anyone anywhere to say anything like what this study has said, that fathers and men matter (note: because the study is not talking so much about the effect of the skin-to-skin contact on the babies, but on the fathers).
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 06 2022, @06:39PM (1 child)
May have been your intention, but that's not how your OP reads.
I doubt that trans-national elite managed, for example, to even dent the social-democratic values of the scandinavian countries.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday September 06 2022, @08:36PM
I disagree. I found the idea of "fathers aren't expected to be relevant to babies and young kids" to resonate equally with, say, the idea of a father in Victorian England hiding himself away in a forbidding study until the kids turned 18 (as seemed to happen in some literary works).
You could argue that the above also comes under a "Western" category, and other cultures are certainly available. But I didn't scan the post as being explicitly USA-oriented.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by fliptop on Tuesday September 06 2022, @03:18PM (6 children)
What a load of BS. If you're not using the best of your abilities and devoting yourself to raising your kids as soon as they arrive then either a) you're a feeble beta; or b) the mother is insane.
To be oneself, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 06 2022, @04:17PM (2 children)
Or, alternatively, the parents never learned parenting skills. I took some ribbing and kidding when my kids were little, because people around me didn't think it was "macho" to change diapers, to bathe babies, to feed infants and toddlers, or to cuddle with little kids for more than maybe ten minutes at a time. Sitting with them, reading Grimm's Fairy Tales or whatever was absolutely out of the macho realm. Some women thought it was admirable, a lot of men thought it was effeminate, and everyone else fell somewhere in between.
If men aren't taught that it is manly to care for babies and children, you can't blame it all on the men. Those men had parents who failed.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday September 06 2022, @08:38PM (1 child)
At first scan, I read that sentence as "Or, alternatively, the parents never learned gardening skills".
I need to check the quality of my reading skills...
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 06 2022, @09:39PM
Well, kids are like vegetables. They have to be watered regularly.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 06 2022, @04:38PM (1 child)
Incomplete that list of alternatives as it may be, beat me if I understand how the modder thought this is a troll.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 06 2022, @04:50PM
You must be new here.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 06 2022, @05:00PM
According to , in 2021 there were about 11 million single parent families, and 80% (8.8 million) were single mothers. About half of those single mothers were never married. [singlemotherguide.com]
Between divorce (where the courts overwhelming limit the fathers' access to the children) and a welfare program that encourages women to not get married, there are millions of fathers who aren't allowed to be involved in the upbringing of their children.
Fatherless children are one of the biggest problems in our society.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Tuesday September 06 2022, @07:30PM
I don't think my kids would appreciate that, being adults now.
(Score: 4, Funny) by EJ on Tuesday September 06 2022, @08:17PM (1 child)
It's because right after birth is when they're most vulnerable. Only then can you absorb their Qi and add it to your own. Once they turn into teenagers, they start trying to suck your soul out of you, so you need to steal as much energy from them at the start.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday September 06 2022, @08:41PM
You don't get that long: they start sucking/suckling immediately!