This article, "Touching, Talking Aid Brain Growth," was in Saturday's
Seattle Times.  I am copying it in its entirety for those of you who find
yourselves in the position of having to describe to a mom what the Ezzo or
Self-Calmed Baby techniques do to her infant's development:

Copyright  1997 The Seattle Times Company
Saturday, Sept. 13, 1997
Touching, talking aid brain growth
by John Omici
Gannett News Service

        WASHINGTON - African-American infants and children who are already
in "double or triple jeopardy" due to troubled family environments and
mothers' lack of prenatal care especially need touching, talking-to and
cuddling to encourage early brain development, experts said yesterday.

        Science is confirming what some mothers have known for eons, said
Dr. Don Vereen of the National Institute on Drug Abuse:  Touching, holding
and cuddling children stimulates development of complex intellectual
centers in the brain.

        Scientists still aren't sure how early brain development occurs,
but "something hidden is going on" in children's early months that
requires plenty of parental involvement, Vereen said at the 27th annual
Congressional Black Caucus convention.

        Close contact is especially important to African-American infants
and children, said Sharman Word Dennis, who ran an early-intervention
program here. "We are seeing babies born as healthy infants who are
delayed in their development at 2 years old because that touching, talking
and snuggling is not going on."

        Vereen said scientific evidence shows that the goo-goos and
ga-gas, squeezing and nonsense talk from parents in a child's early
infancy stimulate responses deep in the brain that help the infant's
trillion individual brain cells make interlocking connections.

        "If you leave a baby alone," he said, "nothing happens."

        Dr. Mireille Kanda of the federal Head Start program at the Department of
Health and Human Services said nurturing shouldn't be left to mothers
alone. Noting that social influences in the African-American community
often push the father out of the mother-child world, she said, "We don't
need the men just for the money. We need them for nurture."

(Copyright  1997 The Seattle Times Company)

Ginna Wall, MN, IBCLC, Lactation Services Coordinator
University of Washington Medical Center, Mailbox 356153
1959 NE Pacific Street, Seattle WA 98195
Voicemail: (206)548-6368, Fax: (206)548-7665