Bonding with a newborn

For this project I kept coming back to the topic of moms bonding with their newborns. This is very relevant in my family right now because we just had our third kid.

I tried to focus on two elements with my photos. First, I tried to use the rule of thirds, which I would not have done prior to learning about this principle. Second I tried to capture the bond between mother and infant. I have a new found respect for professional photographers. This stuff is not easy to do well.

For this photo, I converted it to black & white because the flash went off and made everything look artificial. Without a camera, this smile would have gone completely unnoticed. 

 This one came out a little blurry but I still felt it was one of my top five because of how Landon seems to be staring back at the camera. How can you not feel good seeing a close up of a baby?

I liked how this one is out of focus. It was totally unintentional. It could kind of symbolize the haze that mom’s feel with the lack of sleep and the energy drain that goes along with caring for a newborn.

I chose this photo because it represented the classic mother-newborn relationship… or at least the desired mother-newborn relationship. Baby Landon was a maniac all day and finally succumbed. The lighting wasn’t great but my camera flash was making the images look like we were at a rave so I turned it off. 

This last photo reminded me of the kind of blank stares from the people in the images we looked at in class last week. In this case, the photo shows that while caring for a newborn breathes life into a home, it can also temporarily suck the life out of you, as well. My wife was a great sport to let me share this photo :)

I discovered some interesting facts with my research about the benefits of newborn bonding. While many of the benefits are obvious, such as developing a closeness with the baby or improving the baby’s temperament through being soothed, I was blown away by the research out there that shows many more positive impacts of newborn bonding.

For example, studies have shown that newborns who are given more attention are healthier. A study in Pediatrics showed that premature babies who were touched or stroked while they were unavailable to be held gained 50% more weight than the other premies who were not.

Oxytocin which is a hormone that is released into the mother’s body during breastfeeding. This hormone has some of the same affects as morphine in that it eases pain and gives the mother a natural high.