The Need for Touch

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https://pixabay.com/en/baby-boy-child-cuddle-cuddling-84639/


In A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman talks about how she visits the hospital to touch and care for prematurely born babies. Lightly rubbing and touching the babies cause them to grow faster, have better temperament, and have fewer physical problems. She gives examples how this is also the case in other species, such as mice and monkeys.


In my Psychology Senior Seminar, we also talked about how touched and nurtured babies grow up with fewer mental and physical problems. We read A Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog by Bruce Perry, which contains stories of children who have gone through trauma. One story was about a young girl (5 years old) who was in and out of the hospital because she wasn’t gaining weight. The mother as a child was in the foster care system and never learned how to nurture. She loved, fed, and clothed her daughter, but didn’t touch her as a baby or showed that she cared. This caused the girl’s body to not gain weight. Once the mother started hugging and nurturing her daughter, she gained weight almost instantly.


This story particularly stuck with me because it astounds me how much the psychological state can affect the physiological state. The body needs to be psychologically satisfied by other humans in order to survive, which peaks my interest in the evolutionary benefits of this trait. Needing touch to survive truly proves how much of a social species human beings are.

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