Parenting Pointers with Dr. Claudia - Episode 198

Topic - Primed For Parenting. 4 million babies are born every year in America. It’s a very powerful event for many reasons. Parenting actually shapes our brain and primes us to respond to our babies. Our adult brain is designed to become very excited when seeing baby’s face. Motor areas of the brain that are responsible for planning movement and prompting speech also get fired up. As a result, when babies cry, we get busy walking and talking to meet their needs. This is exactly why we talk to babies even though we know they don’t understand. We talk to babies in a special voice with lots of variation in volume and rhythm called infant-directed speech. Even our voices are primed to meet their needs. Infant speech is a universal phenomenon and we don’t even realize we’re doing it. Let’s face it, these tiny little people with so few obvious skills completely own us because we are wired to them and for them. All they have to do is cry to flip our switch.