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Comment by samstave | Hacker News Reader

Hmm...

I have three children - and all are intelligent, beautiful well adjusted kids. 5, 7, and 15.

One thing I made a point of as each was born - I maintained as much physica contact with each immediately after birth. I didnt allow them to leave or be examined without me there, touching them.

I did it not for the posted reasons, but just beacuse it felt right to me.

ALso - I would hum and sing to them a tune while they were still in the womb.

As soon as they came out, I held them and sang and hummed the same tune to them. It immediately calmed them - with my first, she immediately relaxed and stopped crying whil the nurse took her vitals, measurements and pricked her heel.

It was magical.

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> I did it not for the posted reasons, but just beacuse it felt right to me.

It probably felt right because it's natural. Newborns pretty much stayed with their mothers 24/7 for all of human history. This is true for chimps ( our closest ancestors ) and even our common ancestor. It's only recently with the push to get women into the workforce where women were encouraged to separate from their newborns so that they could go back to work.

> As soon as they came out, I held them and sang and hummed the same tune to them. It immediately calmed them - with my first, she immediately relaxed and stopped crying whil the nurse took her vitals, measurements and pricked her heel.

The mother's voice also helps premature babies develop. The fetus probably has gotten accustomed to the mother's voice in the womb and associates it with comfort and safety. Perhaps it's an evolutionary relic since many newborn animals are drawn to their mother's voice and vice versa.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/shouldstorm/201909...

Human babies also learn the pre-constructs for the languages being spoken around them while still in the womb, so no reason they can't learn other repeated noises.

Not sure how much it is related, but I learned how touch has a powerfully lasting impact when I read about babies from an underfunded Hungarian orphanage having lots of health problems later in life because of how little they were touched.

Seems very probable that an underfunded orphanage will have other areas like healthcare, sanitation and nutrition lacking as well. Was there something specific about what you read that related to touch?

https://www.livescience.com/21778-early-neglect-alters-kids-...

https://www.nytimes.com/1988/02/02/science/the-experience-of...

This was something I quickly found. I can't seem to find the very article I read however.

Years of neglect is quite a bit broader than just touch. I would expect years of neglect in early childhood to have a long lasting effect on the mental development of kids.

I believe you may be referring to the Romanian orphanages after the Ceasescu communist regime.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_orphans

Reading, too. My wife and I read to our two boys when she was pregnant with them and they loved book time almost immediately, even though they slept through it for the first month or two.

Fast forward and we have one 4 and one 7 years old and they are obsessed with reading and would do it every waking hour if we'd let them.

Here's another magical experience. No one will believe it, but it's true, so here goes.

We too would read, sing and hum to my son in-womb. While doing so, we'd occasionally hear a loud click, the source of which we couldn't determine. But after he was born, we found out. He would press his tongue hard against the roof of his mouth then release it with a suction "pop". Was he trying to communicate back to us from the womb? We like to think so!

I don't think this would work without air.

Maybe it can. It's called cavitation.

Are fetal tongues strong enough to induce cavitation? Are fetal mouths strong enough not to be shredded by cavitation bubbles collapsing? AFAIK cavitation kills a ship's screw sooner or later.

Cavitation can develop with wide range of energies. In this case, I'm suggesting energy level sufficient to create an audible sonic click, but not high enough to rip infant's head off.

> He would press his tongue hard against the roof of his mouth then release it with a suction "pop".

This is an alveolar click, known as a normal part of certain African languages.

If you've seen the name "!Kung San" around, it is the sound indicated by the "!K".

Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4okFm62gxk

Same click.

Our 8 week old will cry if she is not held 24/7. Whilst it is incredibly tiring and hard work, we've found a way to make it work.

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