Ed. note: Today I present Part Two of Lauren Lindsey Porter’s article, “The Science of Attachment: The Biological Roots of Love.” The article was first published in Mothering Magazine (Issue 119, July/August 2003) and appears on www.familyfieldguide.com with the author’s kind permission.  References to footnotes will be provided with the final installment. 

From an emotional perspective, attachment is the creation of a mutual bond in which the mother shapes infant development through her interactions and relationship with her child.4 Babies, who are not born with the ability to decode and decipher meanings and emotions, rely on the mother to help them navigate the world, both internal and external.5

This relationship allows for the formation of “internal working models” that function as scripts or templates, by which babies can then gauge their own emotions and those of others.6 As the baby begins to create these internal working models, the mother acts as a “secure base” that is used for exploration, learning, and developing the necessary skills of self-protection and intimacy.7

Children consequently develop and display distinct attachment styles, which are loosely defined as either “secure” or “insecure.” Insecure styles are hallmarked by features of instability, including ambivalent behavior, preoccupation, avoidant responses, and a lack of cooperative communication in the mother-child pair. Secure attachments, on the other hand, show a child consistently connected to the mother, with a firmly established sense of trust and an unwavering nurturing response.8

The development of a secure or insecure pattern is dependent on the mother’s attachment to the baby and whether there is attunement in this dyad. In other words, it is the mother’s interaction with the baby, and the interplay between that interaction and the baby’s needs, that define a child’s style of relating. These emotional bonds develop rapidly in infants, and are critical to both infant development and the trajectory of events later in life.9

Bowlby approached the study of attachment as a science and included many different disciplines in his approach, including general systems theory, evolutionary theory, ethology (behavioral biology), and descriptive studies of children interacting with caregivers.10 In each aspect of his research, one fact became overwhelmingly clear: attachment is a biological necessity.11 At each developmental point, the infant must have a close attachment with a consistent caregiver to ensure protection in the face of both internal changes and environmental stimuli. Attachment is, quite simply, a key to survival.

This theory of attachment has served as the underpinning of parenting experts such as William Sears, MD and the entire modern movement now termed “attachment parenting.” While not yet mainstream in our Western society, these resources offer important and thoughtful guidance and reassurance to families seeking to parent in a fully conscious and sensitive manner. Unfortunately, the attachment-parenting baby books and information available are often reduced to a list of practical methods, such as on-cue breastfeeding and wearing your baby. They give sound advice but provide little theory, and even less scientific data, to support the methods described. Additionally, these experts often do not give advice for raising children past the age of two, just when many of the most difficult and confusing aspects of attachment come into play.

In our society, attachment parenting is seen as just another of an array of parenting options, and is typically viewed as the most difficult and least appealing choice. What is missing is the science that modern assessment methods and technology can offer. Now, with the ability to study the intricacies of the brain and its functioning on a cellular level, science can deliver conclusive data to back up each aspect of Bowlby’s comprehensive theory, and then some. The data are powerful and offer what no other parenting model puts forward: unbiased and testable information about the workings of the infant brain and the effects of both stress and health on brain development.

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