*4.1.3 "Skin-to-skin-care"/"kangaroo care"*

An early experience of the infant's feedback is very important not only for intuitive parenting regulation but also for parental attachment behavior. The mother's feeling of self-efficacy evoked by the infant's feedback paves the way for relying on her intuitive competencies. One successful method to moderate early and unexpected separation of the infant from the mother's body, which can make both child and parents tend to insecure modes of bonding [129], is "skin-to-skin care," or "kangaroo care." Kangaroo care originally stems from the 1970s when Colombian mothers were advised to take their babies home and carry them on their chests for days and weeks. Through this intervention, infants were supplied with warmth and fed with milk [130]. Adapted to newborn intensive care unit (NICU) application, and incorporated in the NICU setting, "kangaroo care" became one of the most important care standards in developed countries nowadays [14, 131]. In the meantime, there have been many findings on the advantages of continuous bodily contact and on interaction between infant and parents. Recent findings on oxytocin and bonding add to a perspective of incorporating bodily and psychic factors; a recent study found lower depression scores in parents after giving neonatal massage [132]. It seems that people's ancient intuitive knowledge about bodily contact can be said to have been verified again and again; skin contact turned out to be highly important [58].
