Love and Happiness
Love is the essential ingredient for health and happiness.
At Babiesknow we follow the latest in neuroscience findings – along with the parental wisdom and instincts – and believe that love needs to take first place. Love is more important than hours of sleep, keeping up a career, equipment in the nursery, how many vegetables we eat or whether the in-laws are happy.
Laying seeds for depression?
Without love, we cannot truly thrive – and in the long term if our babies do not have their need for love fulfilled, the consequences range from a lack of self-esteem and the inability to sustain a loving relationship to anxiety and depression, and maybe further consequences of these states.
The reason behind this lies heavily in the way neural networks form in the area of the brain called the limbic brain - or the emotional brain. You'll find more about this on our brain pages. Exposure to love, acceptance and listening inclines a person towards contentment. Exposure to excessive fear, or continually activated states of rage, on the other hand, both of which are inbuilt emotional drivesthat every baby feels, alters the way the brain forms and functions.
Neural patterns laid down in the first 1-3 years from conception persist. If these have been formed in response to danger, threat, isolation or agression, they incline the brain in later life to drive behaviour, thoughts and feelings that are in the same vein. There is an increased likelihood that brain activity, based on what was learnt from stress in infancy, will contribute to depression and/or anxiety. Taking care of our children as babies, and minimising such exposure, is a powerful step.
On a Babiesknow course you’ll learn about the positive impact of loving relationships on brain development, how love in practice is stronger than genes in determining good health, and why skin to skin contact nurtures the parts that even incubators can’t reach.
Love is a something we learn
The word 'Love' is often used but the interpretation of love - what it means - is not universally agreed. What love means to each one of us is not something that can necessarily be expressed in words - love is something we feel. And how love feels is something that determined when we are babies. In our first relationship with mum and dad, we learn what it feels like to be connected and loved. Right now your baby is learning about love in her relationship with you. Your baby's brain can, even before birth, store an impression of what love feels like. This happens in the area of the brain called the 'limbic brain.'
(There's more on the limbic brain in our pdf on Emotions - follow the link at the bottom of this page).
Mummy's magic
The unit of mum and baby has been called a dyad, which means 'not to be separated.' Being separated is a cause of distress for your baby, and needs to be avoided at all costs. A baby’s emotional experience is always influenced by mum: there is a constant ‘dance’ between mum and baby’s limbic brains (where emotional feelings are registered). It is as if there is an open loop, and your baby needs you there to complete the loop that allows her to feel emotionally secure, and to feel loved. And despite all the cultural pressures to be independent, as an adult you also need someone else to complete your emotional loop – to really feel the love.
Your baby will thrive when she is in contact with you, and others who love her and communicate lovingly with her. Given a loving start to life, she will grow to be able to love others and form secure relationships. Babiesknow will guide you through your baby’s emotional world and help you offer her acceptance, security and loving touch, spend time breastfeeding, playing and soothing upsets, and the many other elements that constitute love in action.
How you learnt to love
But what about you? How do you love, how do you feel loved? Like every other adult, your own sense of love was laid down in your earliest years, when you experienced your first relationships, and when your own limbic brain was being shaped. Babiesknow takes you on a journey to this time and gently guides you. You may enjoy remembering the bliss of your mother’s unconditional love. You may need to grieve a love that didn’t meet your needs at the time, and today reassert your right to be loved, explore again what it feels like to love and be loved. If you are pregnant or have a new baby, or a child, you are in luck – your children are your greatest teachers.
Loving your mate
Love in your adult relationships is equally important for you, and your baby will feel more secure if the people around her are in loving contact. Babiesknow courses take a look at adult relationships, and the most important where a baby is concerned – the relationship between mum and dad.
Happiness
Happiness is, like love, a term that's often loaded and frequently difficult to describe! At Babiesknow we believe that when you love and feel loved, whichever of the 7 emotional drives you’re experiencing, and when you feel accepted for who you are, whatever your mood, you’re likely to feel happy … we can talk more about this at the weekend!
 Science and Emotions | Emotions and the brain and body; and how emotional feelings in infancy, from conception, shape us for life. |