Helping Mothers to Attach, ….Psychologically.

Some Thoughts on Attachment and Breastfeeding.

Dr Ian Harrison VMO Psychiatrist - Karitane

NSW Lactation College, Annual Conference - 2008

An Ink Blot

Before You Start: Know Yourself.

What do babies do to you?

Begin with a Positive Partnership.

Let mothers start where they wish with their new babies.

Some Points About Attachment

Survival = Proximity = Attachment

In attachment theory, Safety trumps Hunger

Attachment begins prior to birth.

Winnicott and Primary Maternal Preoccupation.

Margaret Mahler and the “12 month pregnancy”.

Birth is a compromise.

Prof. Bruce Perry’s “Somatosensory Bath.”

The baby is “bathed” (clothed) in the caregiver’s arms.

What Helps to Foster a Secure Attachment?

Benign attitudes to babies.

Selma Fraiberg and “The Ghosts in The Nursery.”

Hearing the mother’s cry.

The Protective role of the Mother/Caregiver.

Preventing Trauma

The Infant Brain is a Glorified Spinal Cord.

Negative emotional reflexes are easily set- up and difficult to undo.

ATTACHMENT AND BREASTFEEDING

The first relationship.

Two Feeding Episodes – Two Very Different Outcomes.

Pain transformed vs Pain amplified.

The baby takes in it’s milk and it’s mother.

The proportion changes as the feed progresses.

Happy Milk and Sad Milk

Not all pure milk is happy milk.

Happy Milk and Sad Milk

No Antidepressant

Antidepressant

A/D

Not

Depressed

Pure milk

1

Happy milk

A/D in milk

2

Happy Milk

Depressed

Pure Milk

3

Sad Milk

A/D in milk 4

Sad milk

Breast is great, but mother is better.

Helping mothers to believe in themselves.

HOW DO WE HELP?

Remember transference.

Mothers project all sorts of feelings onto their therapists.

Try to meet the new mother’s dependency needs.

Model a secure attachment relationship.

Educate parents regarding attachment.

Become an informal attachment educator of your clients.

Reframe “Negative” Behaviour to Promote Attachment.

Help the infant’s attachment behaviours to become the solution not the problem.

Use Positive Prediction.

Use your leverage as an attachment figure.

Build on What Is Already There.

Always seize on whatever the caregiver is doing right.

THANK YOU

drianharrison.com.au