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How much a baby is touched leaves measurable effects on DNA methylation (2017)

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Re: How much a baby is touched leaves measurable effects on DNA methylation (2017)

#41

Post by SubiculumCode »

glofish wrote: post #15
tribler wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

scientific study: "The importance of touch in development", Brain Research Centre and Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2865952/#__ffn_... (as commented elsewhere)

most certainly, I would fully agree that touch is an important ingredient to socialization and stimulation - it is the premature claim that it changes DNA what is so annoying and misleading. because once something changes your DNA it suggests that it is there forever (that is why it captures people's imagination)

Not if it is the methylation of DNA, modulating the expression of that DNA...methylation is frequently modulated by experience.

Re: How much a baby is touched leaves measurable effects on DNA methylation (2017)

#42

Post by nashashmi »

samstave wrote: post #2

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 t…

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.

Re: How much a baby is touched leaves measurable effects on DNA methylation (2017)

#43

Post by taneq »

objektif wrote: post #33
dcolkitt wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most twin studies simply compare identical and fraternal twins in non-adopted households. Since identical twins share twice the genetic covariance of fraternal twins, the impact of family environment can be backed out from the respective intra-pair correlation coefficients. In the limit case if genetics played no factor, then fraternal and identical twins should have identical pairwise correlations. For example suppo…

Why would parents of twins pay much more attention to one than the other?

Maybe because, for whatever reason, one cries a lot more than the other?

Re: How much a baby is touched leaves measurable effects on DNA methylation (2017)

#45

Post by objektif »

taneq wrote: post #43
objektif wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would parents of twins pay much more attention to one than the other?

Maybe because, for whatever reason, one cries a lot more than the other?

But that would be an edge case. I would have assumed that identical twins behave similarly. How do they find enough neglected twins to make a reliable conclusion.

Re: How much a baby is touched leaves measurable effects on DNA methylation (2017)

#46

Post by yibg »

nashashmi wrote: post #42
samstave wrote: post #2

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 t…

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?

Re: How much a baby is touched leaves measurable effects on DNA methylation (2017)

#47

Post by jbuzbee »

samstave wrote: post #2

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 t…

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!

Re: How much a baby is touched leaves measurable effects on DNA methylation (2017)

#48

Post by dhimes »

objektif wrote: post #45
taneq wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe because, for whatever reason, one cries a lot more than the other?

But that would be an edge case. I would have assumed that identical twins behave similarly. How do they find enough neglected twins to make a reliable conclusion.

I’ve known three sets of identical twins. In each case the personalities were very different. Outgoing vs reserved, aggressive vs laid back, etc. I could easily see one wanting to be held more than the other.

Re: How much a baby is touched leaves measurable effects on DNA methylation (2017)

#49

Post by s1k3b8 »

samstave wrote: post #2

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 t…

> 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...

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