Understanding Research

“Understanding Research” Response Within this video, there were a lot of different and interesting concepts and ideas we learned. But, the ones I found the most compelling was the effect of touch on baby mice and the placebo effect. The first topic, the effect of touch on baby mice, I found very interesting. A mother mouse is very touchy with her offspring. The scientist did an experiment having the control group have no touch from anything and the experimental group was combed with a brush. The results of the experiment was that the mice who hadn’t been brushed had higher levels of stress hormones in their bodies and their memory, learning, and physical development was negatively effected. The results of this experiment surprised most of my friends when I talked about it, but it didn’t surprise me. I’m taking a Parenting class here at DGS and we have talked about how every baby’s need for physical touch is a great as their need for food. I understand how touch can greatly affect someone, but most people don’t understand it. Looking at these results, if this happens with a mouse, then it should happen with more advance species such as Humans. This on the other hand does shock me. That not everyone knows that by ignoring your baby and not wanting to hold them or spend time with them will affect their ability to develop. Why would a parent do that to their child? This is what I don’t understand. Like stated earlier, I’m in a Parenting class. One day a week ago we had practice time with the mechanical babies that we take home. When the baby cries it could want to be changed, fed, burped, or rocked. I didn’t know this at the time, I tried the bottle and the diaper and tried burping it, and the baby wouldn’t stop crying. My teacher finally told me it was crying because it wanted to be held and rocked. This is a mechanical baby, if it will cry because it wants to be held then a baby who is alive will want that same exact thing. By seeing a scientific study on this