Ecopsychology and the Human Newborn

Abstract

Abstract

How and when does the ecological unconscious develop in the human newborn? Research from the neurobiological findings of attachment theory has shown the deleterious effect of mother separation on the brain development of newborns. Innovations in newborn care, research into the myriad personal and social advantages of breastfeeding, and the introduction of Kangaroo Mother Care has generated new evidence to suggest that the human newborn's natural habitat is skin-to-skin contact with the mother. In this habitat, all newborns have a programmed behavior, which in the immediate period after birth is to breastfeed. The authors' hypothesis is that the deep divide the humans currently experience from the natural world may be a psychological sequel of early environmental disruption. Traumatic medical interventions during birth, the loss of breastfeeding, and subsequent changes in brain chemistry from prolonged mother separation could normalize a disconnection from nature. From an ecopsychological point of view, understanding the implications of increased medical intervention in birth and early childcare, and how the return to the “original paradigm” of more physiological childbirth and childcare practices, could lead to a greater understanding of how the ecological unconscious develops, or fails to develop, in children of urbanized industrialized nations.