NPR. A new study by MIT researchers provides evidence that babies and toddlers understand people have a close relationship if they are willing to share saliva via sharing food or kissing, reports Nell Greenfieldboyce for NPR.
Kisses and smiles
It increases the sense of safety and happiness, enabling complete emotional development. It has calming effects, which helps your baby rest and sleep. It stimulates affective development and helps them learn to express their emotions.
Kissing your baby has a lot of emotional benefits. When a mother shows her baby love by kisses, hugs and the like, it shows the baby that being sensitive to others needs and feelings is important. This in turn can help them relate as well as interact better with those around them.
RSV is spread through contact with contaminated respiratory droplets. Kissing, sharing drinks, or transferring things from mouth to mouth can transmit RSV. Washing your hands, covering your coughs and sneezes, and avoiding contact when you are sick will decrease the spread and help protect our littlest family members.
In order to prevent serious health issues, anyone and everyone, including parents, should avoid kissing babies. Due to the rise in cases of RSV and other illnesses, it's extremely important for all individuals to be aware of the dangers of kissing babies.
Most babies' immune systems will be strong enough for kisses after 2 to 3 months. Until then, it's healthiest not to kiss the baby, painful though it may be.
The lip-restraining guidance is most pertinent to people outside an infant's household, experts told me, which can include extended family. Ideally, even grandparents “should not be kissing on the baby for at least the first few months,” Tan told me.
Many pediatricians warn against strangers kissing babies due to their vulnerable immune systems, as infants are at particular risk of RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus), allergic reactions, fever blisters and foot and mouth disease.
Hugs Keep Kids Healthy
There are many health benefits of hugging and kissing your baby. Hugs can promote our physical health and help us heal. Oxytocin, released when hugging, is a hormone that has amazing power and benefits our bodies.
Your baby finds comfort in your arms
When an infant can be soothed by your voice or physical comfort, this is another way she shows she trusts you. Infants identify caretakers by sight, smell, and sound, and when any of these provide a level of comfort to a baby it is evidence of an established bond.
Maintaining personal hygiene, getting yourself vaccinated, and discouraging others from kissing on the baby's face are some precautions to follow. Kissing babies raises the risk of health issues, such as cold sores, RSV, whooping cough, and cavities.
From your smell and voice, your baby will quickly learn to recognise you're the person who comforts and feeds them most, but not that you're their parent. However, even from birth, your baby will start to communicate with signals when they're tired and hungry, or awake and alert.
“Parents should show love and affection in front of their children. Simple things such as hugging, kissing and holding hands show that you care about that person.
By two months, most babies will look happy to see you, and they'll smile when you talk to them. For many parents, those smiles are a heartwarming first glimpse of true affection. By four months, your baby will be smiling unprompted, hoping to catch your attention with a little “I love you” from across the room.
If your child starts crying as soon as you kiss or hug your partner, it is definitely a sign that your child wants more attention. This doesn't necessarily mean that you aren't giving your child enough attention already.
02/4Why you should not kiss newborns
Newborns have a weak immune system, which makes it crucial to take extra care of them in the first few weeks. Exposure to any kind of virus and bacteria can put their life at risk.
There are no set rules about how long to wait before taking a newborn out into the world or when to let people near the baby. Some doctors recommend that parents wait until their baby is a few months old before going to crowded public places (like malls, movie theaters, and airplanes).
When can a newborn go outside in public? As for taking baby out to public places, it's recommended that you avoid bringing them into congested spaces, if possible—at least until they've had their first round of vaccinations.
While there's no set age, most parents don't feel comfortable leaving their baby until after the first four to nine months. Before that, a lot is going on with your baby as they learn their daily routine.
Room sharing reduces the risk of SIDS. The baby should not sleep in an adult bed, on a couch, or on a chair alone, with you, or with anyone else, including siblings or pets. Having a separate safe sleep surface for the baby reduces the risk of SIDS and the chance of suffocation, strangulation, and entrapment.
A newborn baby's immune system is underdeveloped, and whilst they're not fully immunised, it makes them highly vulnerable to severe infections. Kissing a baby can spread germs that lead to illness, so it's highly recommended that no one kisses a newborn (and that includes their parents, sorry).
While the cause of SIDS is unknown, many clinicians and researchers believe that SIDS is associated with problems in the ability of the baby to arouse from sleep, to detect low levels of oxygen, or a buildup of carbon dioxide in the blood. When babies sleep face down, they may re-breathe exhaled carbon dioxide.
It's about comfort and culture. It is not inherently wrong for a father to kiss his daughter on the lips until the day he dies. All six of us kids, two boys and four girls, kissed our dad on the lips until the year he died at 90. When either party feels uncomfortable, that would be a time to stop.