Still-face studies and the Saudi mother

I’ve been battling with a set of sore ears of late, and finally gave in and saw a doctor yesterday. I sat down in the waiting room next to a young Saudi mother with a small infant – a little boy maybe three or four months old. The little guy was crying – bawling so hard his fists were curled – and no matter how his mother moved or rocked, there was no comforting him.

Finally, the mother lifted her niqab and drew her little boy close to her face. Within seconds his screams turned to contented gurgles.

I realize that Saudi mothers aren’t always fully-covered around their babies – for instance in the house surrounded by just family, or only other women, I assume the niqab is removed. Still, I can’t help but wonder what effect not being able to see his or her mother’s face – to gauge her expressions - has on a little baby.

Psychologists have apparently wondered too – though perhaps not over this exact situation. For nearly 20 years, researchers at the Child Development Unit at Boston Children's Hospital have been conducting what they call “still-face” studies

Basically the studies look at a baby’s behavior when the mother’s facial expressions are absent during interactions. (absent but not covered up) What they’ve found is fascinating – when a baby is unable to get a facial expression out of its mother, it goes through a well-defined and documented pattern of behavior that always leads to withdrawal.

Just reading the description makes my heart ache:

“In a typical session, a three-month-old baby girl's response to the situation might progress as follows.

Before the second 3-minute period, while still alone, the baby might be looking contemplatively down at her hands, fingering the fingers of one hand with the other.

As the mother enters, her hand movements stop. She looks up at her mother, makes eye-to-eye contact, and smiles.

The mother's masklike expression does not change. The baby looks quickly to one side and remains quiet, her facial expression serious.

Her gaze remains averted for twenty seconds. Then she looks back at her mother's face, her eyebrows and lids raised, hands and arms stretching slightly out toward the mother.

Finding no response, she quickly looks down again at her hands, plays with them for about eight seconds, and then checks her mother's face once more.

Her look is now cut short by a yawn, with her eyes and face turning upward. Her fingers pull at the fingers of her other hand, the rest of her body is motionless. The yawn and neck stretches last five or so seconds.

The baby throws out one arm in a slight startle and looks briefly at the mother's face. Her arms move in a jerky fashion. Her mouth curves downward, her eyes narrow and partially lidded.

She turns her face to the side, but keeps her mother in peripheral vision.

She fingers her hand again, her legs stretch toward her mother and rapidly jerk back again.

She arches forward, slumps over, tucks her chin down on one shoulder, but looks up at her mother's face from under lowered eyebrows. This last position lasts for over a minute, with brief looking at the mother occurring almost every ten seconds.

She grimaces briefly, and her facial expression becomes more serious, her eyebrows furrowing.

Finally, the baby completely withdraws, her body curls over, her head falls. She does not look again at her mother.

She begins to finger her mouth, sucking on one finger and rocking her head, looking at her feet. She looks wary, helpless, and withdrawn.

As the mother leaves the alcove at the end of the three minutes, she looks halfway up in her direction, but her somber facial expression and curled-over body position do not change.”

Get the tissues!

Just as interesting – and heartbreaking – is the effect of this patterned behavior on the mothers involved in the study. To a mother – and remember, this study has been going on since 1978 – they said things like:

“It was all I could do, not to respond.”
“I felt as if I were deserting my baby.”
“I felt torn away from her, and I felt as if I were losing a part of myself.”
“I felt sad, angry, and desperate in turns.”
“I never want to do it again.”

Feelings of vulnerability, helplessness, anxiety and fear clearly abound when babies are deprived of their mother’s facial expressions and mothers are prevented from sharing facial expressions with their babies.

I might be wrong, but I can’t help but think that the baby in that waiting room wasn’t crying because of a wet diaper or a bubble in his tummy, but rather because he was being deprived of his mother's face - the thing that made him feel safe, secure and loved.

Crying until she lifted her niqab and showed her face to him was the only thing he knew to do.