Babies in the Workplace

Scientific and psychological studies are making it clear that close physical contact
and responsive care can actually be critical for normal psychological and physical development. In the short term, making a baby wait for help leads to more crying and, long term, it leads to insecurity and difficulty forming healthy relationships as an adult, as well as other psychological problems.

The importance of responding immediately to a baby's cries is evident from a biological perspective as well. Mothers (and fathers, but to a lesser degree) are programmed to try to soothe their babies and meet their needs. Ever watch a mother of an infant when her baby is screaming but the mother is unable to help the baby--say, if the baby is crying in the back seat while the mother is driving? For many mothers, being unable to soothe a crying baby is excruciating--and often results in the mother breaking into tears as

well. Most mothers react extremely strongly to their babies' cries--not because the sound is painful in itself--but because every part of a mother's being is telling her to help her baby now.

While it might seem strange for mothers to react with such intense emotion to a baby's cry, from an evolutionary perspective it makes perfect sense. Before cities really got off the ground, so to speak, humans lived off the land in social groups, helping each other to find food, helping to defend the group from animal predators, and assisting each other in day- to-day survival tasks. Simply finding enough food, water, and shelter to survive took up most of their time. In order for babies to stay fed and have their needs met, they had to be able to communicate those needs and a parent had to be motivated enough to pause in their survival tasks to take care of the baby.