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Keep in touch: The importance of touch in infant development

Article in Infant Observation · August 2005

DOI: 10.1080/13698030500171530

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 KEEP IN TOUCH: THE IMPORTANCE OF TOUCH IN INFANT DEVELOPMENT

LYNN BARNETT, Crediton

In a great number of cultures in the world, touch ,through the medium of massage, has been
understood as being vital for the development of young infants (and often their mothers too). However
it is only within the last few decades that western scientists,professionals and developmentalists have
understood the power of touch in illness and health, stress reduction, brain formation and the
development of attachment. This article discusses the evidences from animal experiment, infant-
mothers and psychoanalytic clinical work.

Key Words: Touch; massage; brain formation; attachment; animal experiments; clinical implications

INRODUCTION *1

In the introduction to her book Touch and Early Development Tiffany Field (1995)
applauds the opening of a new Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami
School of Medicine. As she says it is the first of its kind in the world and although
there are already institutes for all the other senses, there was none for touch and the
skin . Thus, despite the skin being the largest sense organ in the body, it has been the
most neglected topic of research. As Field points out, touch is particularly important
for the growth and development of the foetus, the new-born and the growing infant.
It is as important for health as diet and exercise.

Cross-Cultural Practices
Massage, as one form of touch, is a crucial and routine part of infant care from Africa
to India and Indonesia, from central America to Australia, New Zealand and the
former Soviet Union. There are few places in the world where babies are not routinely
massaged during the first few months and years of life. It is interesting that we in the
West have taken so long to understand its importance. If mothers, rather than
scientists, are asked why they massage their babies there are many different answers.
Some are to do with health, some with beauty and others as a protection against the
elements. The Bedouin Arabs smear their babies with a mixture of oil and salt for the
first seven days after birth to protect them from evil spirits; Gujarati mothers in
Western India believe that massage is good for circulation, making strong bones and

1
helps to create beauty, so babies heads, noses, mouths and eyes are squeezed into
shape. Other people, for example British infant massage therapists, regard massage
as good for emotional wellbeing by improving communication between mothers and
babies. New Zealand Maori mothers focus their massage on their baby’s knees and
ankles, believing it will make joints supple and their children graceful. In Bali
massage is thought to be particularly helpful for infant colic and in Russia for helping
to develop the central nervous system. In Japan many pregnant women are
massaged by their husbands, using a form of Shiatsu called Tiakyo. This is regarded
as helping them bond as parents and with the baby in the womb. Fathers sometimes
stimulate the foetus by pressing particular pressure points on their wives belly and
issuing instructions such as “jump” or “roll over” because it is believed that the
foetus will then recognise the father’s voice when born.

The Anthropologist Ashley Montague (1995) believes that touch is adaptive in

evolution as a form of social communication that can cross species, cultures, genders
and age groups. He suggests that without touch there may be growth failure (as found
many years ago by Rene Spitz and more recently in Rumanian orphans),
communication failures, aggression and even war.
This latter claim may sound extreme but it is one also made by James Prescott
(1975) a developmental neuropsychologist at the National Institutes of Health,
Bethesda. He uses the term ‘somatosensory deprivation” meaning the deprivation of
touch and body movement and says ”I am now convinced that the deprivation of
physical sensory pleasure is the principle root cause of violence. Laboratory
experiments with animals show that pleasure and violence have a reciprocal
relationship, that is, the presence of one inhibits the other”(p65). He maintains
further that certain sensory experiences during the formative period of development
will create a neuropsychological predisposition for either violence-seeking or pleasure
seeking behaviour later in life. He claims that the laboratory experiments, interviews
and cross cultural comparisons he has made demonstrate that individuals and societies
which experience and promote physical, sensory pleasure are also the most peaceful
and least aggressive. This is an important conclusion in our violent world and will be
discussed in more detail later, but let us first examine a culture which well illustrates
Prescott’s thesis.

2
The Fore people live in the highlands of New Guinea. Their way of life is still proto-
agricultural, a stage in human evolution which preceded settled agriculture but
superseded hunting and gathering. The anthropologist Richard Sorensen (1976)
studied the Fore in the 1960’s, only five years after their first contact with Europeans.
He suggests that proto-agriculture may have played a significant role in the culture
and behavioural development of human evolution and goes so far as to say that the
way the Fore behave with their infants may actually be part of our evolution. What is
particularly interesting is that physical contact is of great importance throughout the
Fore life cycle but particularly in infancy. Babies are carried in string bags on their
mothers backs and spend much of the rest of the time on their mothers (or others)
laps -- even when mothers are peeling vegetables or cooking. This means that they
can suckle on demand and are in constant skin to skin contact (Fore women wear
only grass skirts). *2 Physical touch and play underpins much of Fore non-verbal
communication, for both adults and children , and according to Sorenson , this
“engendered a confidence, a realistic self reliance and an inquisitive experimentality
in children leading to non aggressive, co-operative adults” ( my italics ).

Laboratory Work with Animals

Tiffany Field (ibid) treated human pre-term infants with massage following findings
from the work of Saul Schanberg (1995) with rats at Duke University. In the US
there is a close link between animal work on touch and its applications to humans.
Schanberg found, in mother rats, that a particular pattern of touch, namely licking,
inhibited the rats’ production of beta endorphins, a chemical that affects the
development of insulin and growth hormone. The presence of the mother rat was not
the key factor, as it was found that simulating the mother’s rough tongue with a wet
paint brush had the same effect. But it was only a quick , heavy, stroking pattern
which was effective – mere stimulation of the kinaesthetic system did not induce
physiological change. Schanberg hypothesised that the touch system is part of a
primitive survival mechanism found in all mammals. Infant mammals depend for
their survival , in the early weeks and months, on maternal care such as feeding and
grooming,, so the prolonged absence of a mother’s touch (for even ten to fifteen
minutes in a rat), will trigger a slowing of the infant’s metabolism and this reduces its

3
need for nourishment. It goes into a kind of hibernation to conserve energy and
water. This heightens its chances of surviving until it is again in physical contact with
its mother. The mother’s touch having reversed the process, growth resumes at a
normal rate. Schanberg found that the inhibition of growth hormone caused by
maternal separation is not mediated by neuro-chemical release from the pituitary as it
used to be thought but that there are different bio-chemical systems capable of
transducing receptor signals to genes and that various kinds of genes can be targeted
and made to react in certain ways with other genes. Maternal separation and lack of
touch significantly reduces the expression of some of the rapidly acting genes. He
says ”.I believe the brain reacting to the environment can reach its long arm right
down into the middle of a cell and regulate genes that, after all, can be considered the
basic units of life itself. In this regard we must give some credit to Michaelangelo
who, some 450 years ago is reputed to have said ‘to touch is to give life’.” (p 78)
Schanberg has subsequently designed a model medical school curriculum which
stresses the importance of touch .However, it must be remembered that touch therapy
was the foundation for medicine long before drug therapy. It was first described in
China in the second century BC and soon after in India and Egypt. Even
Hippocrates in 400BC defined medicine as “the art of rubbing”.
(Field (2000))

Marian Diamond (1988) showed that rats which had more tactile experience had
better developed nerve cells in the area of the cortex of the brain that processes the
sensations of touch. Lack of such experience led to a decrease in the richness of
connections and size of these brain cells. All the nerve cells are there but the
connections or synapses between them have to be made and those not used are
eliminated. Other researchers too have shown how brain development is affected by
touch; how certain brain chemicals, necessary for growth, are stimulated by touch and
others, released in the absence of touch, stunt growth. The electro activity of brain
cells changes the actual physiological structure of the brain. Proactive experience
stimulates the development of the pre - frontal cortex (which is one third of the
human brain and which enables the capacity to empathise with another ) but
negative experience, such as early trauma,, effects the left hemisphere (which
enables learning from experience and thinking). It becomes flooded with stress

4
hormones and becomes overridden by the right hemisphere. This leads to hyper-
vigilant, aggressive reactions, which may not be adaptive to later situations
There is a link here with ‘failure to thrive’ infants. At John Hopkins Medical Centre
it was found that the release of growth hormone in such children was abnormally low.
But under the loving care of nurses the babies would revert to normal growth patterns
(that is the release of growth hormone was normal). However, it was also found that
merely administering growth hormone to failure to thrive babies failed to increase
their growth as it was the touch and care of the nurses which was crucial.

The neuro scientist Michael Leon (1993) found that rats can come to prefer odours not
previously preferred simply because they are accompanied by touch. Also from work
with rats it has been shown that tactile stimulation helps adjust norepinephrine levels
to an optimal level. Norepinephrine is a hormonal agent which is a transmitter of the
sympathetic nervous system like dopamine; that is it helps regulate physiological
reactions such as blood pressure and heart rate.

Steven Suomi (1995) has done pioneering work in the field of psycho-neuro-
immonology with monkeys. His data suggest that touch has significant critical
effects on the immune system. In wild Rhesus monkeys he found that early contact
experience or grooming was related to their body’s ability to respond to a tetanus shot
and produce an appropriate anti-body response later. He has documented the positive
effect of massage therapy on the immune system of HIV positive men: following a
month of massage the number of their natural killer cells increased . In Exeter, a
charity called The Devon Aids Association offers free massage to such sufferers. In
other words we can now say that touch, not only affects the immune system but also
aggressive behaviour, heart rate and blood pressure, the structure of the brain, genes
and, we may even be able to say, that the prevention of much disease could occur
through increasing touch.

Mother-Infant Studies

T. Berrey Brazelton (1990), the author of the famous neo-natal assessment scale, has
turned his attention to foetal assessment in utero in order to detect risk conditions
which may need interventions during pregnancy. Tactile stimulation is important for

5
foetal growth as this is the primary source of communication (via sound, vibrations
and amniotic fluid movements) and touch is the first sensory system to develop,
beginning seven and a half weeks after conception. Golman (1988).

Marshall Klaus (1995) demonstrated the power of touch in labour and delivery. He
found that touch significantly reduced anxiety in pregnant women and he evolved
what he called the ‘Doula system’. He provided a woman to hold, touch and talk to
pregnant women throughout their labour. This reduced the length of their labour, their
pain and reduced caesarean section operations. Importantly too, the mothers with a
Doula showed more responsiveness to their infants both in hospital and at later
follow up at home.

There are various studies which investigate the separate roles of touch, vision and
voice in mother/infant interaction. One by Stack and Muir (1992) found that the
stress of a mother’s still face presentation can be lessened by allowing the mother to
touch her infant during the process. This touch also enabled the infant to maintain the
normal levels of smiling and attention to the environment.

Perry (1997) outlined the role parents play in setting up the neuro circuitry that helps
children regulate their responses to stress. As mentioned previously, children who
were physically abused early on develop brains that are exquisitely attuned to danger.
At the slightest threat their hearts race, their stress hormones surge while their brains
anxiously track the non-verbal cues that might signal the next attack. Because the
brain develops in sequence with more primitive structures stabilising their
connections first, early abuse is particularly damaging. These early experiences of
stress form a kind of template around which brain development is organised so the
changes they create are particularly pervasive. Perry concludes that “experience is
the chief architect of the brain”.

Emotional deprivation as well as physical abuse early in life has a similar effect.
Dawson and colleagues (1997) monitored the brain wave patterns of children born to
depressed mothers. One of the symptoms of maternal depression is less touching and
interaction with their infants. These children showed markedly reduced activity in the
left frontal lobe of the brain - the centre for joy and other light-hearted emotions.

6
Their brain patterns closely tracked the ups and downs of their mother’s depression.
At age three the brain patterns of children of the more severely depressed mothers or
those whose depression lasted longer, continued to show abnormally low readings.
However, the children of depressed mothers who had managed to rise above their
depression and play with and give attention to their babies, had a more normal brain
pattern. Further, the brain activity improved in those children whose mothers
recovered from their depression before their infants were a year old. However,
this ability to rebound gets less as a child gets older because there are now considered
to be sensitive periods for brain development. The greatest growth spurt closes at
about 10 years and from then on the weaker synapses are destroyed if they are not
used or transformed by experience. The first year however, is the most important in
the time- scale of brain development.
.
Work by Trevathen and Schore echo these findings. Trevarthen (1993) observed
that the growth of a baby’s brain literally requires brain-brain interaction and occurs
in the context of a positive affective relationship .
Alan Schore (2001) takes this further: “In a number of contributions I have offered
evidence that indicates that the emotional communications of evolving attachment
transactions directly impact the experience-dependent maturation of the infant’s
developing brain.”(p21 ) and, he continues, “because the early maturing right
hemisphere is in a growth spurt in the first year-and-a-half and is dominant for the
first three, attachment experiences specifically impact the development of the infant’s
right brain.“ (pp 15-16). Schore maintains that the early postnatal period
represents a ‘critical period’ of limbic-autonomic circuit development, during which
time experience, or environmental events, participate in shaping ongoing synapse
formation.

Daniel Siegel (1998) has views similar to Schore and Trevathen , namely that
“human relationships shape the brain structure” and that experience, such as touch,
activates specific neuronal connections creating new synapses and the strengthening
of existing ones. Lack of care and lack of stimulation can lead to ‘pruning’ where
connections are lost and neurones may die. New synapses are created through the
activation of genes that cause the production of the proteins necessary for neuronal
growth. At Baylor College of Medicine it was found that children who only

7
experienced restricted play or were rarely touched developed brains that were 20 to
30% smaller than normal.

Mary Main (1990) is concerned with the way some parents reject their infants
initiatives for physical contact. She found that parents of avoidant infants at one year
have shown strong aversion to physical contact with their infants as early as the first
quarter of the first year, leading to frustration, aggression, anger and conflict within
the infant. This pattern of parental aversion is stable over the first year of life and is
not initially related to the infant’s ‘cuddliness’ or lack of it, but Main found it was
linked to rejection in the parent’s own childhood by their mothers as shown in the
Adult Attachment Interview (this holds for men as well as women)
A Sample of battered toddlers in day care showed more aggression to both peers and
care- givers, than did a control group studied by George and Main (1979) Main and
George (1985). The battered toddlers responded with fear and anger to distress in
other toddlers not with interest or concern as did those in the control group who had
not been battered. Thus disorganised, aggressive infants have rejecting, frightening or
frightened parents the origins of which go back another generation. This failure of
self-regulation is often diagnosed as ADHD or ADD.

Interventions
Main quotes a study by Anisfield (1987), which gives evidence that touch through
infant carrying has a beneficial effect on encouraging healthy mother/child
attachment. After giving birth, low income women from a hospital clinic population
, were randomly assigned to an experimental or control group. The experimental
group were given soft baby carriers and the control group were given plastic infant
seats. At thirteen months of age the quality of attachment between infant and
mother was blindly assessed by the Ainsworth Strange Situation and the infants were
then classified as securely or insecurely attached. Of the babies ventrally carried by
their mothers in the soft baby carrier – the experimental group – 83% were securely
attached. Of those who had been left to sit in the plastic seats, only 38% were
securely attached. These results, Main suggests, show that infants who had been
carried close to their mother’s chest in the early months are more likely to approach
her following separation and then settle and return to play than infants who had not
had such close contact. The method of feeding, either breast or bottle, was not found

8
to be related to the security of attachment. This seems to confirm the primacy of
‘contact comfort’ suggested by Harlow and Mears in their early work with
monkeys. In this context it is also interesting to note that baby macaques abused or
isolated in infancy are abusive and neglectful towards their first infant. However,
following some physical contact with this first infant (and including perhaps quite a
lot ventral contact) they may be adequate mothers with their second infant; again
demonstrating the relationships between abuse, touch and mothering.

Hopkins (1987) Failure of the holding relationship: Some effects of physical rejection
on the child’s attachment and on his inner experience, is quoted by Mary Main
(ibid) as showing how expert psychotherapy by someone aware of attachment issues
can change the patterns of parental physical aversion to their infants.(see p…)

Gene Anderson (1995), studied what she called “Kangaroo care” for pre-term infants.
This involved skin to skin contact over most of the body of the infant by lying it on
the skin of the mother or major caretaker. Anderson showed in a comparison between
pre-term infants left in bassinets and those given Kangaroo care, a dramatic
difference. From a very slow heartbeat, almost bradycardia (an abnormally low rate
of heart contractions and consequently low pulse rate) and difficulties in breathing in
the bassinet sample, to stability in both heart rate and respiration in the “Kangaroo
care” babies. There was also dramatic weight gain in pre-terms cared for by the
Kangaroo method and a reduction in time spent in hospital. Anderson links the
findings to the effects on the parasympathetic system and believes that Kangaroo care
can also have preventative effects in normal term infants, by preventing for example,
the need for intensive care and that the ideal time to begin for most infants is straight
after birth.. Anderson also found in a study carried out with Tiffany Field that
stimulation of the mouth during tube feeding of pre-term babies (by sucking on
pacifiers) led to the babies graduating to bottle feeding several days earlier, being
easier to feed, gaining more weight and being discharged from hospital several days
earlier than the control infants not so stimulated.

In another study by Tiffany Field (1995) premature babies who were massaged for
fifteen minutes three times a day gained weight 47% faster than the control group of
babies left in their incubators. They did not eat any more than the controls, but

9
showed signs that their nervous systems were maturing more rapidly and they were
becoming more active than the control group; more responsive to a face and rattle and
left hospital, on average, six days earlier. When followed up eight months later the
massaged infants did better on tests of mental and motor ability and maintained their
increased weight. The massage consisted of light, gentle but firm strokes to the
baby’s back, legs and neck and gentle movement of their arms and legs. Too heavy a
touch can lead to pain and be abusive, too light a touch to over-stimulation or
irritation. Field (1997) also found that massaging depressed mothers and their babies
lowered their stress hormone (cortisol ) output and has documented using fathers
and elderly volunteers as masseuses for infants also. As well as for enhancing infant
growth and decreasing depression, Field (2000) documents the use of massage with
many categories of patients as well as infants and mothers: infants with both low and
high birth weight and those at low and high risk eg exposed to cocaine; patients with
cancer, HIV and other immune disorders and autoimmune disorders; with
anorexia/bulimia, for pain reduction in several conditions and for enhancing
attentiveness in ADH and autism.

Dr. Vivette Glover (1997) the Director of the Foetal and Neonatal Stress Research
Centre at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital, London, carried out a small project to study the
longer term benefits of women with postnatal depression attending massage classes
for mothers. Her team identified mothers with postnatal depression using a well
established self report questionnaire, the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale
(EPDS) Half of them were asked to attend five weekly sessions of the massage class
while the other half acted as controls. All the mothers attended a directed support
group. Twelve in the massage group and thirteen in the control group completed the
study attending five sessions over a period of up to eight weeks. The infants were on
average nine weeks old at the start of the study. There was no difference in mothers’
baseline depression scores or in socio-demographic parameters in the two groups or in
those that completed the study and those that did not. The primary outcome
assessment was made by comparing ‘before and after’ face to face interactions
between mother and baby (which reflected the quality of the interaction – warmth and
sensitivity) . These were video-recorded and rated according to a standardised
method. Initial interactions were impaired in both groups of mothers, as expected,
and the scores for the mothers in the control group stayed the same for the period of

10
the trial. However, the scores of the mothers who attended the massage classes
improved into the normal range. The differences in the mother-baby interaction
scores at the beginning and end of the trial, when compared across the two groups,
was highly statistically significant.

Also, in England, Adamson-Macedo (1994), a Psychologist working with pre-term

infants, coined the phrase ‘Touchiorkor’ to describe the sensory deprivation of infants
in incubators. She developed a systematic stroking method called ‘ tic tac therapy”
(touching and caressing/tender in caring). This has been used in many neo-natal units
since 1981 in the U.K. Adamson-Macedo sees its function as reducing pain by
decreasing the secretion of stress hormones and increasing the production of
endorphins both of which assist the infant’s self regulation, strengthen the immune
system, increase growth hormones and accelerate the removal of assisted ventilation.
New investigations show that non-treated pain compromises the immune competence
of the infant, thereby delaying his/her recovery from surgical interventions.

Some Psychoanalytic Views

11
There has been controversy over the years as to whether or not there is a place for any
kind of touch in Psychoanalysis or psychodynamic therapy. Certainly Wiinnicott like
Balint and Sechehaye , used it occasionally with severely regressed patients ( head or
hand holding). Some therapists of victims of torture also find it helpful at certain
points. One of the difficulties is the unconscious meaning to both the touched and the
toucher; the ” fears of invasion, dread of confusion, intolerance of impotence “
which Meltzer (1983) discusses could equally apply to patient or therapist. One of
the common arguments against using touch in therapy is that wanting it may be a
resistance to deepening the transference – on the other hand if it is a very early
infantile transference ,particularly in a child patient, it may be vital . Of course there
are dangers of abuse. There is much to discuss about this issue, particularly in the
light of the work discussed above, but it cannot be undertaken here. (For a good
discussion and references see Ball (1999))
Mention needs to be made of some psychoanalysts who have written or made
comments about the skin, the organ of touch. (see Inge-M Pretorius (2004) for a more
detailed discussion)

Winnicott (1960) suggested that to the developing infant in the womb, kinaesthetic
and proprioceptive experience is a vital element at the core of his body-self and
constitutes an essential part of his ‘continuity of being’. After birth, a mother learns
to hold the various parts of her baby in such a way as to safeguard his sense of
physical integration, as well as the way he feels positioned in space. If a mother fails
in this, at best the baby feels physically and emotionally at odds with himself and at
worst he feels as if he has “fallen apart.” His infantile omnipotence is threatened,
which in the early stages of development, must be bound up with an illusion of
control at this basic, bodily level.
Bion (1963) refers to touch as an antidote to the confusion which can arise from the
use of projective identification: it establishes “a limiting boundary” which is absent in
hearing and sight. Nevertheless some primitive anxieties can remain uncontained and
remain in the domain of bodily experience only.
Pines (1980) suggests that the skin establishes a boundary between the self and
non-self and represents the self container for mother and infant. Through her handling
of her infant a mother’s skin conveys a range of emotions, both positive and negative.
The latter may be reacted to by various skin disorders .

12
Houzel1 (1990) suggests that experiences of the skin are elaborated into an “ego skin”
or “psychic envelope” , somewhat analogous to Freud’s idea of the first ego being
a ‘body ego”.
The psychoanalyst Kenneth Wright (1991) speaks of touch as the “the nucleus of the
real “ and finally Caplan (1998) when writing about the importance to the infant of
touch and being held , writes of the infants need for “the firm pressure of the
mother’s body” .
It is interesting to consider how an autistic person uses touch to avoid or escape
interpersonal contact. Francis Tustin (1986) created the concept of “autistic
sensation shapes” to describe activities which are repeated, stereotyped,
autogenerated, and usually tactile or kinaesthetic, such as stroking, rubbing, rocking
and feeling the edges of objects. These activities, experienced by an autistic person as
soothing or tranquillising, are assumed to direct attention from the outside world in a
defensive way. These experiences are similar to what Winnicott called “subjective
shapes”.
The issue of intentionality needs to be considered in the infant-mother context just as
when discussing a clinical setting : how do mothers( and others ) touching infants feel
and what phantasies do they have about what they are doing and how it may feel to
the recipient. Touch, while being differentially distributed, also conveys different
messages. However, the different kinds of touch and the messages it conveys are yet
to be investigated in the same detailed way as have, for example, maternal facial
expressions and their effects on infants.

Conclusion
We have seen from the experimental and clinical work cited, the importance of
touch in gene activation, brain development, attachment and in the reduction of stress
and some physiological and psychological disturbances in both infants and adults. It
also serves as a component of the mutual regulatory process and as an external
regulator of the affective and behavioural organisation of the infant. However, the
importance of touch is something that we in the West have only recently recognised
although mothers in other cultures where massage is regularly practised, have known
it intuitively for generations. It is pleasing to note that massage and touch is being
used now in so many different contexts. The program of The Guild of Infant and
Child Massage , Professional Forum last year reflects this.: A speaker on the best

13
oils to use in infant massage; another on supporting the depressed mothers of a Sure
Start Program through a mental health unit in a General Hospital ; another describing
how massage has now become part of the school curriculum in Sweden , in order to
deal with stress in the classroom ( massage is also being used in some British schools)

The issue of intentionality needs to be considered in the infant massage context just
as in the clinical setting : how do mothers (and others) touching infants feel and what
phantasies do they have about what they are doing and how it may feel to the
recipient. Touch, while being differentially distributed, also conveys different
messages. However, the different kinds of touch and the messages it conveys are yet
to be investigated in the same detailed way as have, for example, maternal facial
expressions and their effects on infants.
In conclusion; although we now know so much more about the enormous
physiological and psychological benefits from massage and other kinds of touch,
particularly for infants, the purpose, context, relationship and meaning surrounding it
need always to be taken into account .

Footnotes
*1 The original version of this paper was given at the International Infant
Observation Conference, Tavistock Clinic (1997) then revised for conferences
elsewhere including; AIMH (UK) +ACP Joint Scientific Meeting (2000) ;The
Guild of Infant and Child Massage, Professional Forum,Coventry (2002) ;The
Menninger Clinic, Kansas (2002)
*2 The presentations were given in conjunction with two videos ;’ Massage
Compilation’ Barnett (1998) which showed infant massage clips from different
parts of Asia and ‘Growing Up Fore’ Sorenson (1976) . The latter showed
clearly how touch dominates the development of Fore children from infancy to
adulthood.

References

Adamson- Macedo, E.N.,& Alves Attree, C.J.L. (1994)’ Tac-Tic Therapy ’ Br.J.
Midwifery 2.6.264- 269.

Anderson, Gene (1995)’ Touch and the kangaroo care method’ in Field (1995).

14
Annisfield, Elizabeth (1987) Lancet 14/2.

Anand, K.J.S., Hickey, P.R. (1987) ‘Pain and its effects in the newborn ,neonate and
foetus ‘ New England J. Med. 317,21,13.

Ball,Alison.(1999) Physical Touch: Theoretical and practical issues in the

psychoanalytic literature. Unpub. Masters Thesis at Monash University, Melbourne.

Barnard, Kathryn E, Brazelton, T, Berry (Eds) (1990) Touch: The Foundation of

Experience, N.Y: International Universities Press.

Barnett, L.E. (1998) Saturday’s Child: A Baby is Born in Gujarat. . Video in three
one hour parts. The Studio, Lammacott Cottage, Crediton EX176DA.UK

Barnett, L.E ( 1998) a video. Baby Massage Compiliation. (Ibid)

Bion, W.R. (1963) Elements of Psychoanalysis. London: Heinemann Medical.

Caplan, W. (1998)’ A good little boy’ International Journal. of Infant Observation

2,1 pp 5-20.

Dawson, Geraldine (1997) quoted in Nash (1997).

Diamond, Marion (1988) quoted in Goleman (1988).

Field, Tiffany (Ed) (1995) Touch in Early Development New Jersey: Erlbaum.

Field, Tiffany (1997) ‘The treatment of depressed mothers & their infants’ in Murray
& Cooper (1997).

Field, Tiffany (2000) Touch Therapy London; Churchill Livingstone

Field, Tiffany (2001) Touch Massachusetts: Institute of Technology

Glaser, Danya (2000) ‘Child abuse and neglect and the Brain – a review in
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Glover, Vivette (1997) ‘Maternal stress or anxiety in pregnancy and emotional

development of the child’ Br. J. Psychiat 171,105-6.

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