Mother's touch: Experiment with moms and babies in a room accidentally reveals ancient evolutionary secret
Hannah explained that in the human body, neurons 'fire' due to a particular type of touch.
Ever wondered if there was a switch within our bodies to soothe our anxieties and calm our hearts? On October 23, Cambridge professor Hannah Fry unpacked an important study that found how a mother’s gentle stroke affects the tiny hearts of preterm infants, and how they help one cope with stress and find calm even later in life.
The study, "Gentle as a mother's touch: C-tactile touch promotes autonomic regulation in preterm infants," which was authored by Isabella Püschel, Jörg Reichert, Yvonne Friedrich, Jörg Bergander, Kerstin Weidner, and Ilona Croy in 2022, found that when preterm infants fight to adapt to life outside the womb, a mother's gentle stroke serves as a "reset button." To explain further, Cambridge professor Hannah Fry shared in her Instagram post that every human has a switch that is preprogrammed to make one feel safe. Hannah details that, however, this switch is only activated when somebody else flips it. She explained that in the human body, neurons could "fire" due to a particular type of touch. "Some of them will go off when they feel pain, some when they feel hot or cold, while some of them when they feel pressure."
She shared that in 1993, scientists in the study titled "A system of unmyelinated afferents for innocuous mechanoreception in the human skin" discovered that one neuron in the human body does not respond to any of the popular external effects like slapping your wrist, pinching it, or any of the various other 'normal' ways we interact with our skin. This set of neurons only goes off when it is triggered with a really soft, gentle stroke at about 3 centimeters (1.1 inches) per second. The scientists decided to name these "C-tactile afferents." The same phenomenon is seen in animals, due to which dogs and cats tend to lean on the person when they are stroked or petted. However, Hannah emphasized that in humans, the neurons are a bit "stranger." She revealed that the gentle stroke for humans must not be too fast or too slow. Instead, it must be exactly 3 centimeters (1.1 inches) long stroke per second, with a temperature of 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit), which is roughly about the temperature of "somebody else's hand."
To learn more about this "strange gentle stroke," the group of scientists led by Ilona Croy analyzed 53 standardized events in which preterm infants (24 to 36 weeks of gestational age at birth) were left with their mothers. As soon as the experiment began, the mothers all instinctively began stroking their infants at the exact rhythm we just discussed. "There is no training, no kind of calibration. This is just maternal instinct that knows the exact rhythm to make their baby feel good," Hannah added. She also shared that the neurons' "firing" lowers the infant’s heart rate and the baby’s stress. The study also suggested that if the stroking was done for a considerably long time for preterm babies, it would reduce the time they spent in the hospital.
Soon after the video went viral, many online users shared their thoughts on what Hannah called the "biological lullaby." @cristinaroadtrips wrote, "'Biological lullaby' is such a beautiful and descriptive word combo." @superfluiss commented, "'Built-in biological lullaby that we're all preprogrammed to know the rhythm to' made me cry a little? Am I okay? What a beautiful turn of phrase. As a physio in the US, when I learned about the effects of skin-to-skin contact or 'kangaroo care' in NICU, I was fascinated. The human body is truly a marvel. Thank you for sharing this." @sammiecat72 shared, "I think it works for the giver too. I think the reassurance of giving love is just as powerful, but I’m no scientist."
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