Understanding Your Adopted Baby

Until recently, there have been many theories about newborn babies but little known facts. For centuries, babies have been misunderstood and underestimated by adults.   However, due to some remarkable infant studies conducted by leading researchers such as Berry Brazelton, M.D., Marshall Klaus, M.D., Professor T.G.R. Bower and many others, our understanding of babies is finally coming of age. What the research is now telling us is that what we have traditionally believed to be true about newborns is actually false.   Babies are not simple beings who do not feel, do not think and do not grieve.

Studies have shown that babies recognize their mother’s voice, smell, and her face within four hours of birth. If babies “know” their mother’s voice, her smell and what she physically looks like, then they also “know” that their mother, whom they connected with for nine months in utero is suddenly gone following birth. When the natural evolution of this connecting in utero is interrupted after birth, the experience of abandonment and loss is then imprinted upon the mind of the baby. And the baby grieves.

Newborns who are separated from their biological mothers demonstrate grief which is often misinterpreted by adults because so many of us are unaware that the baby is actually mourning the loss of his or her biological mother. Two common themes seen in newborns being released for adoption is protest and despair. Protest is expressed by the baby raging (crying) for their missing mother. Despair begins when the hope of being reunited with her dimishes and the baby stops crying and becomes withdrawn and detached.

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