brain

The term bonding assumes that two things are being connected. The mother-child is a shared, reciprocal unit. The question is maintaining the connection that is there throughout the entire nine months of gestation.  That bond is simply that the other is the actually and only environment for the growing fetus and infant.  To refer to that as a bond might strike you as strange but that’s what it is.  It’s a bond between the new life and the environment which gives rise to it, and that’s the mother. 

Rachel wrote:
I have a question around bonding/brain/skin-to-skin.  I have a 7 week old, that I am attachment parenting...carrying in arms, co sleeping etc.  I spent a lot of the first 4- days with skin to skin, however since then hardly any skin to skin (as it is winter and I have two other children so it's not convenient.)  Can you give me some information around whether the skin to skin I did for the majority of the first 4-5 days was sufficient for optimal brain development/bonding or whether I should still be doing this?  Thank you. LOVE the website and the work you are all doing - it's the best thing for the world!

The First International Symposia On Circumcision in 1989 unanimously declared that the genital mutilation of children is torture. David Levy in a published study in 1945 titled “Psychic Trauma of Operations in Children” described suicidal and homicidal behaviors in a six- year old child consequent to circumcision when he declared: “I wish I were dead” and “played numerous killing games, in which his father was the principal victim”.

Federal Law established Female Genital Mutilation as a crime (PL 104-208), March 30,1997) where the 14th Amendment states “nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”, which extends the criminal sanctions under PL 104-208 to male children, yet to be recognized by the Congress.

Dr. Judith Palfrey, M.D., President, American Academy of Pediatrics was compelled to renounce the AAP Bioethics Committee’s policy statement on Ritual Cutting of Female Minors with the following statement: ”The AAP does not endorse the practice of offering a "clitoral nick”. This minimal pinprick is forbidden under federal law and the AAP does not recommend it to its members. The AAP is steadfast in its goal of protecting all young girls from the harms of FGC.” (April 26, 2010). A plea was made to Dr. Palfrey to provide equal protection of male children from these sexual assaults.

A Petition was circulated at The 11th International Symposium on Circumcision, Genital Integrity, and Human Rights held at Berkeley CA 29-31 July 2010 that called upon Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Chairman Senate Judiciary Committee to enforce the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, which the Obama Administration has failed to enforce, that would provide equal protection for male children given to female children under PL 104-208.

Dr. Francis S. Collins, Director, National Institutes of Health, has not been responsive to pleas to provide protection for male children subjected to this perinatal-brain trauma of genital mutilation, yet to be evaluated by the NIH. (Letter of 1 October 2009 ,below).

The Genital Integrity Community is encouraged to write Senator Leahy in support of this Petition.

Supporting documents are found HERE.

James W. Prescott, Ph.D.
Director, Institute of Humanistic Science
27 August 2010

The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears. I think everyone in the world, to a large or small extent, has felt rejection. And with rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime in revenge for the rejection, and with the crime, guilt ~ and there is the story of mankind. John Steinbeck, East of Eden, 1952

Breastfeeding bonding and baby-carrying bonding are the first events of life, which the newborn/infant/child learns about love and non-violence. Love is first learned at the breast of mother and by being carried on her body ~ like in utero, where the first lessons of being connected with mother are learned. Baby-carrying is the external umbilical cord that assures that the baby is connected with mother, and breastfeeding bonding for 2.5 years, or longer, has been found to be essential for optimizing brain-behavioral development for the prevention of depression and suicide, which makes possible peaceful, harmonious and egalitarian behaviors later in life possible.

These two behavioral measures of maternal-infant/child affectional bonding: 1) baby-carrying during the first year of life and 2) breastfeeding for 2.5 years or greater are the singular developmental events that can PREVENT infant mortality and suicide in the teen and adult years of life. These early life events form the foundation for the neurointegrative brain (joy, happiness and love) as opposed to the development of the neurodissociative brain (depression, alienation, homicidal and suicidal violence).

These Two Cultural Brains are formed during the early years of brain-behavioral development, which makes possible sexual affectional bonding relationships that reinforce the Neurofunctioning Brain, Egalitarian and Harmonious Relationships. The following data are provided In support of this reality.
http://www.violence.de/prescott/letters/Our_Two_Cultural_Brains.pdf

Baby-carrying bonding was found to predict with 80% accuracy the peaceful and violent behaviors ("killing, torturing, mutilation of enemy captured in warfare") in 49 tribal cultures distributed throughout the world. 100% prediction of Peaceful or Violent cultures was possible when youth sexuality was permitted or punished was added as a predictive variable (Prescott, 1975,1977, 1979,1990, 1996, 2005).

Weaning age of 2.5 years or longer in 26 tribal cultures was found to be characteristic of 77% (20/26) of tribal cultures rated low or absent in suicide. 82% (14/17) cultures with weaning age 2.5 yrs and greater and support youth sexuality are rated low or absent in suicides (Prescott, 2005).

Baby-carrying during the first year of life and weaning age of 2.5 years or longer was common to 63% of the cultures studied, thus indicating the high correlation of these child rearing practices (Prescott, 1990).

TABLE 1. SUICIDE CULTURES AS A FUNCTION OF WEANING AGE, INFANT PAIN AND ADOLESCENT SEXUALITY
WEANING AGE 2.5 YEARS OR LONGER

Attached are a number of research documents, references and tables that support these conclusions.
Please review and share.

JWP

SEXUAL MONOGAMY AND VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMAN.
Part 1 A Betrayal of Human Sexual Evolution

James W. Prescott, Ph.D.
Institute of Humanistic Science

The Washington Post listed 3 new books about sex that illuminates rather than titillates at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/07/09/AR2010070902849_pf.html

The Washington Post July 11, 2010

The subject of this Post is the book "Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality," by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá (Harper, $25.99).

Stephen Lowman of The Washington Post commented that: “Humans weren't wired to be monogamous, contend the authors, and until about 10,000 years ago most had multiple sexual partners. The agricultural revolution and the concept of private property placed new pressures on the roving eye, but our innate biology has not changed with our social institutions.”

I would add "and social institutions has not changed our innate biology" as sexual violence against women and children continue as the worst epidemics that afflict modern homo sapiens. Diamond (1982) in The Third Chimpanzee states: "Throughout human history, adultery has had few rivals as a cause of murder and human misery”. (p.87); and "The role of sexual jealousy as one of the commonest causes of homicide emerges from studies in many American cities and in many other countries. (p.96). http://www.violence.de/prescott/letters/BOOK_OF_THE_CENTURY-DIAMOND.pdf

Every newborn offers a new hope for a different future for humanity. http://www.violence.de/prescott/ttf/cultbrain.pdf

Suzann Arms of Birthing the Future is planning an international symposium on birth and how it affects the way the brain and therefore how culture develops. She asked for feedback – Though you might be interested…

Suzann 
It is done onto us as we perceive – as we believe – as we do onto others.

The emphasis you placed on birth – being the foundation of human development – is of course critical. I suggest that there is another focus, one that is deeper and more nurturing. The core insight driving all of our activities at Touch the Future is summarized in the preface for a new book in development Kids are NOT the Problem.

There is a pervasive, near universal perception – parenting is about kids. Just about everything a parent does and often thinks about is about ‘the kid.’ An alternative point of view, a completely different paradigm, is that kids provide the necessary catalyst for evolutionary development in adults. The first, parenting is about kids, places children, their care, education and development in the spotlight. They are the goal and focus of attention and resources. The second, becoming a parent is about adult development with kids providing the stimulus for this continuing growth, places the adult center stage. Adult growth and development then becomes the goal, focus of attention and target for resource investments. It sounds selfish but it’s NOT.