The Evolved Nest Explained: Each of the Nine Components Discussed

One of the nine components of our Evolved Nest is Allomothers. Allomothers, alloparents or other nurturers support mother during pregnancy and throughout the life of the child, providing responsive care, positive touch and play. 

Learn more about Allomothers at the Evolved Nest's Self-Directed Learning Center: https://evolvednest.org/6-multiple-allomothers

Read about Allomothers on Kindred: https://www.kindredmedia.org/2019/05/allomothers-our-evolved-support-system-for-mothers/

About our Evolved Nest

Children are biosocial creatures such that their biology is constructed by their social experience. The evolved nest or evolved developmental niche (EDN) is the ecological system of care provided by families, teachers and communities that aligns with the maturational schedule of the child, satiating the evolved needs of infants and children, allowing them to flourish and develop compassionate spiritualities. The EDN consists of soothing gestation and birth, on-request extensive breastfeeding and positive moving touch (no negative touch), a welcoming social climate, self-directed play with multiple aged mates, warmly responsive nurturing from mother and others, nature immersion and connection, and healing practices to repair miscommunication or hurts. Well-nested children and adults demonstrate social and moral flexibility, adapting to situations and others with emotional and spiritual intelligence.

Evolved Nest Explained: What Are Allomothers?

Watch Darcia Narvaez and Mary Tarsha present the first component of the Evolved Nest: Soothing Perinatal Experiences. See more resources in the EN Learning for this component here: https://evolvednest.org/1-perinatal-experiences

Childbirth is naturally timed to indicate when the child is ready to be born (sometimes exiting the womb early because of problematic development or maternal stress). 

Modern practices often interfere with nature’s timing. Humans have changed this heritage with psychological interference (e.g., anticipation of pain, causing fear and contraction of muscles instead of relaxation.  Natural oxytocin and epinephrine are released by the mother during unimpeded labor, suppressing pain, coordinating uterine contractions and supporting emotional bonding through hormone releases that facilitate memory and social reward (Lévy, Kendrick, Goode, Guevara-Guzman, Keverne, 1995).

Vaginal birth may parallel the extensive licking that other newborn mammals receive from their mothers (Montagu, 1978). Similar to mammals who go unlicked, cesarean-birthed babies have respiratory, digestive and elimination problems.  In fact, the physiological stress of natural birth triggers high levels of mitochondrial uncoupling protein 2 (UCP2) which is related to nutrient utilization critical for normal development and survival of hippocampal and other brain neurons, affecting memory and other functions in adulthood (Simon-Areces, Dietrich, Hermes, Garcia-Segura, Arevalo et al., 2012).

Evolved Nest Explained: Soothing Perinatal Experience

Evolved Nest Explained gives information about evolved nest components and why they are important for child and adult health, wellbeing and sociomorality.
 
We have identified nine components of humanity’s evolved nest for young children. They include soothing gestation and birth, on-request extensive breastfeeding and positive moving touch (no negative touch), a welcoming social climate, self-directed play with multiple aged mates, warmly responsive nurturing from mother and others, Nature immersion and connection, and healing practices to repair miscommunication or hurts.  Many of these components are important (apart from birth and breastfeeding) for maintaining wellbeing throughout life.

For more information, see EvolvedNest.org.

The Evolve Nest Explained: BREASTFEEDING

POSITIVE TOUCH like carrying and rocking promote neurobiological health.

What to do:

•  Carry, hold, rock your baby as much as possible. 
•  Stay physically close 24/7.
•  Practice skin-to-skin contact as much as you can.
•  For older children, play with them in whole body ways. Cuddles and roughhouse!

Why?

Human babies are much more social and malleable than are other animals where most studies of touch have taken place. Animal studies show:

•  Losing contact with the parent is distressing. 
•  Even a few minutes of separation in rat babies causes lifelong changes in stress response (Levine, 2005), which when mild and graded can help the offspring cope with the stress of separation (Katz et al., 2009). 
•  Multiple systems are regulated by the presence of the mother and quickly become dysregulated when she is physically absent (Hofer, 1994). 
•  Physical separation activates painful emotions (Ladd, Owens, & Nemeroff, 1996; Panksepp, 2003; Sanchez, Ladd, & Plotsky, 2001) 
•  Monkeys isolated from adults when babies spend their lives with deficits of 5-HIAA, a main metabolite of serotonin (critical for intelligence and happiness, social behavior) (e.g., Kalin, 1999; Suomi, 2006).

Resources

See The Evolved Nest's Resource page: https://evolvednest.org/evolved-nest-resources

Evolved NestExplained: TOUCH

The Evolved Nest is a breakthrough concept that integrates findings across fields that bear on child development, child raising and adult behavior.  The Evolved Nest promotes optimal health and wellbeing, cooperation, and receptive and sociomoral intelligences. Societal moves away from providing the Evolved Nest have contributed to the ill being and dysregulation we see in one another and society. Learn how to nest your children and re-nest yourself. 

This video addresses one of the nine components of the Evolved Nest. Visit the website for more resources and information: www.evolvednest.org

RESPONSIVENESS TO NEEDS AND CUES
What to do:

•  Learn the cues your baby gives to signal needs. Skin-to-skin contact is especially good for this in the early hours, days and months of life.
•  Learn to move in with a response before your baby cries—in order to keep baby in optimal arousal. Otherwise your baby will practice becoming distressed as part of his personality. 

Why?

After nine months of gestational synchrony, human mothers and neonates under natural conditions typically move into an interactional synchrony of sound and movement within the first hours after birth (e.g., Condon & Sander, 1974; Papousek & Papousek, 1992). Caregivers act as external regulators of psychological and biological development (Hofer, 1994; Schore, 2001). Optimal human development is thus rooted in social synchrony with others who help the child maintain optimal arousal levels (Reddy, 2008; Schore, 1994; Trevarthen, 2005). 

In early life, the brain is forming its emotional circuitry and structures in collaboration with caregivers (for reviews, see Schore, 1994; 2001). Responsive caregivers, in mutual co-regulation, shape the infant brain for self-regulation within and across multiple sensory systems (e.g., respiratory, hormonal), influencing multiple levels of functioning (Hofer, 1994) and establishing emotional patterns that promote confidence and mental health. 

For example, responsive care with co-regulated communication patterns is related to good vagal tone, which is critical for well functioning digestive, cardiac, respiratory, and immune as well as emotional systems (e.g., Donzella et al., 2000; Propper et al 2008; Stam et al., 1997). Non-responsive parenting leads to poor vagal tone (e.g., Calkins, Smith, Gill & Johnson, 1998; Porter, 2003). Other systems are also affected negatively. For example, having a depressed mother (whose nurturing responses are limited) alters the functioning of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA; e.g., Beatson & Taryan, 2003; see Dawson, Ashman & Carver, 2000, for a review). 

See the website for more: https://evolvednest.org/evolved-nest-components

Evolved Nest Explained: Companionship, Responsiveness, Attachment

Darcia Narvaez and Mary Tarsha discuss one of the nine components of the Evolved Nest: Routine Healing Practices.

One of the nine Evolved Nest components is taking up routine healing practices. We all get hurt or angry or uncentered, then we are more likely to hurt others or ourselves. In traditional societies, regular, even daily healing routines are practiced. Here we describe how we get thrown off balance, from early life stress or ongoing or sudden stresses in adulthood. We suggest several ways you can adopt self healing practices.

Find out more about the Evolved Nest and its nine components here: www.evolvednest.org

The Evolved Nest Explained: Routine Healing Practices

Evolved Nest Component #5

SELF-DIRECTED SOCIAL PLAY is free social play with multiple-aged playmates. 

What to do:

Try not to interfere in your child’s natural play instinct. For example, create a space where you can let baby and toddler explore on their own without interference.
Build into your child’s day several self-directed social playtimes.
Let your child be outside on his or her own.
Encourage social play with differently- aged playmates. Although adult-directed sports or other play activities might be good too, self-directed free play is different and important.

Why?

Humans are mammals. Young mammals play when they feel safe and well. People who have little self-directed social play experience tend to be more aggressive and have other behavior disorders (e.g., van den Berg et al., 1999), as well as diminished academic achievement (Barros, Silver & Stein, 2009).

The Evolved Nest Explained: Self - Directed Social Play

Darcia Narvaez interviews John Geisheker, Executive Director and General Counsel of Doctors Opposing Circumcision (D.O.C.), about what parents should know about infant circumcision.

Visit the Evolved Nest here: www.evolvednest.org

Evolved Nest Explained: Circumcision

The Evolved Nest is a breakthrough concept that integrates findings across fields that bear on child development, child raising and adult behavior.  The Evolved Nest promotes optimal health and wellbeing, cooperation, and receptive and sociomoral intelligences. Societal moves away from providing the Evolved Nest have contributed to the ill being and dysregulation we see in one another and society. Learn how to nest your children and re-nest yourself.