The Mother/Baby Dyad
Note: Here we are looking at the biologically-typical human breeding model of a female parent identified as a mother and a child gestated in her womb and cared for by her as the primary caregiver. We recognise and acknowledge the LGBTQIA+ community includes many variations on this scenario and respect some of the terminology used here might feel exclusive. We apologise for any implied discrimination.
“The mother-baby dyad is truly the foundation of human health and wellbeing. As Donald Winnicott famously said “there is no such thing as an infant...” a baby cannot meaningfully exist outside a relationship or the environment on which they depend; usually this is their mother’s body. Mothers and babies have evolved alongside each other and they belong together.”
The 4th Trimester can be accurately described as exterogestation. Following the brief interruption while the foetus exits the uterus via the birth canal (or surgical incision) the human infant resumes gestation on the exterior of the maternal body, where she now actively feeds, warms and protects her immature infant. Everything done to the mother has a direct impact on the baby and many things done to the baby have a direct impact on the mother. Bonding is the process of ensuring the mother will not simply set the baby aside and get on with her life. Secure attachment is developed by the infant when their mother responds to their needs with love and care. The very language we use implies a connection so strong it cannot be broken.
Modern society has developed a culture of separating mothers and babies early and often. This behaviour is not seen in other primates or humans living lives closer to those of our ancient ancestors. So why did everything change?
With all due respect - it was the intrusion of the Patriarchy. The invasion of white, middle-class males into the female realm of birth, breastfeeding and care of the young has done as much harm as their invasion of everywhere else
The almost immediate separation of mother and child after birth has parallels with the separation of a woman from the act of birthing her own child. On arrival at the hospital in labour, women in the mid 20th century would be deeply sedated and wake later to be handed a washed, dressed and wrapped newborn sleeping off the effects of their first bottle of infant formula. After admiring her child for a short period, the baby would be returned to a nursery where rows of newborns in cage-like metal bassinets on wheels were tended according to strict routines, by nurses impeccably dressed in starched uniforms. Token attempts at breastfeeding were rarely successful as tightly wrapped babies were wheeled out to mothers on a strictly four-hourly schedule where minutes at the breast were limited and timed, before babies were returned to the nursery and efficiently bottle fed in the arms of proud nurses. In the Baby Boom of post-war British colonies, Europe and the United States the marketing of bottle feeding products nearly saw the extiction of breastfeeding altogether.
Affluent mothers in the 20th Century would return from the maternity rest home and employ a night-nurse (who would swiftly whip the baby into sleeping through the night) and a day-nurse or nanny. The non-breastfeeding mother would soon return to fertility and so produce a line of children. She would discreetly mask these pregnancies and probably consider them an inconvenient price to pay for her social status.
The advent of reliable contraception enabled women to take more control of their fertility and family sizes became smaller in middle-class families. The second wave of feminism in the 60s and 70s encouraged mothers to take a “second bite of the apple” and return to work or study after birthing their smaller families. Independence for women necessitated independence in their children. Community creches where women would take rostered turns to care for small groups of babies and children allowed others to attend university or participate in part-time work. This was all much easier when breastfeeding rates were at an all-time low and babies routinely fed and slept on rigid schedules. The stereo-typical Earth Mother who had one on the way, one on the hip and one at her feet was ridiculed, particularly for her hippy habits of breastfeeding, babywearing and indulging her children. “Barefoot and pregnant” was another slur against women who didn’t aspire to independent lives and the husbands who preferred it that way
In the 1980s women were beginning to delay starting families until they had completed study or established careers. Motherhood became “A Job Worth Doing” for those who chose to remain out of the workforce and focus on caring for their own children until school age. But the tide was beginning to turn. By the mid 1990s, pressure was mounting for women to return to work after a period of leave. Subsidised child care in commercial day care centres, fathers becoming increasingly seen as alternate primary caregivers and calls for universal paid parental leave meant more mothers could take their place in the paid workforce.
By the turn of this Century, research was showing more and more how important the connection between mother and baby in the immediate postnatal period is for establishing breastfeeding. However, the mother-baby dyad continues to be under threat outside the postnatal unit as pressure remains on parents to sleep train their babies, get them into routines and prepare them for entering the child care system, now rebranded as Early Childhood Education.
The mother-baby dyad continues to be disrupted routinely by division. Mothers are urged to pump their breastmilk to enable babies to be fed their milk in their absence. Even the act of pumping has been automated, with women wearing breast pumps tucked inside purpose designed bras so they can multi-task while harvesting milk for their baby. Breastmilk as a commodity has created another industry focused on lactating mothers and breastmilk fed babies being separated during the working week. In countries like the US, where mothers are still without provision for paid maternity leave, some are leaving their newborns whose age is still counted by days. Unregulated markets for the sale of human milk leave babies vulnerable to scammers and the most vulnerable women and their infants are the most likely to be at risk.
“I once said: ‘there is no such thing as an infant’ meaning, of course, that wherever one finds an infant one finds maternal care, and without maternal care there would be no infant.”
