Ignored babies feel their stress hormones increasing
If you ignore your baby completely for two minutes, his stress hormones increase, a study by the University of Toronto has found. But before we all start worrying about being able to put down our babies even for a few minutes, it’s important to understand the full details of the study.
The research was based on 30 mums and babies who took part in a playtime session. At first the mums played and interacted with their babies, but this was interspersed with a few minutes in between, where the mums ignored their babies by looking over their heads. Within this two-minute period, the study found that the babies’ stress levels rose.
This doesn’t mean that you have to play with your baby constantly 24/7, but the results are suggesting that if you communicate with your baby and then suddenly stop, this can cause him to feel anxious.
“When the baby needs to be tended or responded to (and they aren’t) there is an immediate impact on the infant that shows up as quite stressful, Dr. David Hanley from the study said.
