Maternal cradling bias: A marker of the nature of the mother-infant relationship

Abstract

The tendency of mothers to cradle their infant on their left side was first demonstrated by Salk back in 1960, but has been the subject of renewed interest in recent years. In this paper, I examine the different aspects of this tendency, making a short detour to explore this behavioral bias in other mammals and in nonhuman primates. The left cradling bias has been investigated not only in mothers, but also in fathers, children and students, as well as in different cultures. Moreover, the origins and causes of this behavior have been explored by examining its links to hemispheric specialization and to other motor asymmetries in mothers and infants. In recent years, researchers have also explored divergent patterns of cradling in groups of mothers exhibiting stress, anxiety, or depressive symptoms during pregnancy and after delivery, as well as in children with atypical development (e.g., autism spectrum disorder). The findings reported in the past 20 years open up promising avenues for anticipating potential difficulties in the relationship between mother and child, for given that a left cradling bias has been found in about 75% of the samples tested, cradling patterns could constitute natural behavioral markers of the socio-emotional harmony between cradler and cradled.