What does that mean? “Every time a mother comforts a baby in distress, she’s actually regulating that baby’s emotions from the outside in. After three years, the baby internalizes that ability to regulate their emotions, but not until then.”
Not the most adroit way to make the point I grant you.
Perhaps a better way to say it is that a newborn’s nervous system is not fully developed and it is in need of a mother’s constant attention in order for that system to develop properly.
To anyone who has observed a newborn this should make perfect sense.
Read some stories about Russian orphanages and their treatment of orphaned newborns and the consequences to those children and this article and the book take on a new meaning.
The Russian orphanages is an extreme example but the concept is clear mothers are critical to the development of newborns and children as a whole.
Not fully developed and dependent on the mother for its natural growth is quite different than saying there is no central nervous system at all.
I think the neuroscientist may be relapsing into his pro-abort speak (my guess) because if he mainly thinks that a baby is nothing but a blob of cells then I can see where he may jump to the conclusion that just born babies have no central nervous systems.
However, if he flipped through his own neurobiology research journals he have to come to a correct conclusion.