The Baby: Action Consultancy

Some time ago I began visiting a Special Care Baby Unit in a big hospital and observing there for one hour each week.

I had wanted to observe new prematurely born babies because I am interested in our very early responses to our environment, particularly in physical responses; this physical way is our only way of expressing ourselves before language develops and before there is much of a “memory bank” of experiences in this world.

Most of our early physical responses are reflex movements and automatic activities, and I wonder if very early patterns correlate with symptoms of illness in later life. In so many of the symptoms of psychosomatic illnesses there is an imbalance of autonomie control. In new-born babies I thought I would best be able to observe automatic reflex activity before more integrated purposeful movements developed.

Once I began visiting the unit, I realised that I was being observed by the staff there, and it was strange for them to find someone apparently doing nothing; I was taken for a grannie, an aunt, a midwife, a mum, and “one of those mad psychiatrists”. Gradually I was accepted as harmless, although odd, and nurses and parents began to talk to me. Nurses would often make thoughtful remarks about the babies, like “he must feel so exposed in this big incubator, after being inside”. I found myself observing the babies with my face almost touching the transparent side of the incubators, naturally finding an eight-inch space between us; I read that this has been shown to be the distance at which babies focus best,—and of course it is the distance between faces of mother and feeding baby.

As the weeks and months went by I felt more comfortable in the unit but increasingly uncomfortable at what I saw happening when the babies' temperatures were taken rectally. This was done 4 hourly and was always followed, when the thermometer was pushed in, by marked changes in the babies' respiration, general movement, facial expression and often colour. The chang