The Greatest of These: The science of love.

Books & Culture/Christianity Today ^ | July 19, 2005 | Karl W. Giberson

[Mrs. Don-o]

Review of:

Love at Goon Park:
Harry Harlow
and the Science
of Affection
by Deborah Blum
Berkley, 2004
360 pp., $16, paper

Science is often at odds with common sense... [T]he most striking counterexample ...would have to be the early 20th-century conviction that physical affection, human contact, and love were irrelevant to infants. For a rather long period of time, the psychology of early childhood went completely off the rails ....

More than half of the unhappy orphans assigned to an institution in Buffalo between 1862 and 1875 died before the age of one...Convinced that the deaths were the result of infections spread by touch, the homes developed sophisticated procedures to reduce the chances that the babies would get germs of the sort that might be spread by hugging, rocking, or that most ghastly and irresponsible act of germ warfare—kissing.

One hospital devised a special box with inlet sleeves that would allow an attendant to interact with the child—change a diaper, for example—without actually touching the child.

...This misunderstanding resulted in the death of tens of thousands of children, victims of a profound confusion about the nature and importance of love. Unknown to the science of the time was a central "mystery" that is still being unraveled—namely, that little children need lots of love. They need to be held, hugged, kissed; they need someone to play peek-a-boo with them and swing them in a circle. There is something in these natural, primitive activities that strengthens little children in mysterious ways, making their immune system more robust, giving them the strength to fight off childhood illnesses.

...Juxtapose this image with that of an illiterate rural farmer's wife comforting her newborn at her breast... She is doing what every mother would do, unless instructed by science to do otherwise.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I believe that the late-19th and early-20th century was also the era that began to frown furiously at the practice of breast-feeding one's own babies. Babies who are nursed at their mother's breast have to be held. And I mean held A LOT! The pseudo-scientiifc consensus was that holding babies is germy, icky, and in some sense embarrassingly animalistic. So, to minimize all that physical contact: voila, the bottle!

Another instance of the turning away from natural women.

What say ye?

[Retired RN]

It does seem that this mentality is starting again. I remember when breast feeding was frowned upon by physicians in the 1960's. Now this is rearing it's ugly head again, but not with physicians, but media. Refer to the article about Barbara Walters being so offended at a women sitting beside her on a plane, breast feeding her infant. Because of this rampage on the show the "View"... New mother and "View" co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck was wildly applauded by Walters' coterie when she announced she was giving up nursing her newborn daughter and switching to bottle-feeding. These are suppose to be liberated women. Too sad to be funny.

[Retired RN]

Just an extra note, physician's in the 60's changed their tune when they discovered the immunity that can be passed from mother to child.