Emotional Connection Theory - what is it?
Emotional Connection theory is an attempt to explain the mother infant bonding process. The authors believe that the mother infant bonding is a learned or conditional response. This learning occurs during the natural process of mother and infant interactions. The mother and newborn develop a connection by touching, looking at each other, using familiar sounds, and speaking. It is an adaptive process to have the mother and infant automatically orient and approach to each other. Based on their findings, the authors suggest that the mother and fetus develop this adaptive orientation during a full-term pregnancy. If fact, it was Dr. Welch's work related to premature infants that let to the development of this theory.
