The major tactile and potentially erotic encounter involving infant and mother is, of course, the sucking relationship. The mechanisms of sucking are simple. The infant is born with a sucking reflex which is stimulated by the touch of an object on the cheek or lips. The infant turns its head toward the object (in this case the nipple), opens its lips, and starts to suck when the nipple is placed in the mouth. Though sucking is a reflex action, practice helps. The mother is likely to notice the infant's increased skill in sucking that comes with practice. As the control of neck muscles improves, the infant becomes more and more efficient at getting into place and finding the nipple for himself. (Sears et al, 1957, p. 64, 66).
The sucking encounter is a co-operative venture of infant and
mother. Success depends on the behavior of the infant as well as the
behavior of the mother. From the infant's side, behavior problems can
occur because of inefficient sucking, apparent dislike of the nursing
situation, and lack of responsiveness. The infant can be fickle and demanding.
The situation has to be "right" or he may refuse to participate.
Robinson observed that many infants whose mothers fed them
strictly by the clock refused "point blank" to take the breast after
the age of three months and had to be bottle fed. (Robinson, 1968, p.
123).
The breast was not refused if the mother was "easy-going" and fed
her infant by "instinct" rather than by the clock. On the other hand,
scheduling of infrequent feedings causes the breast to be overfull, so
that when nursing begins the milk may spurt out and choke the infant.
This interference with the infant's breathing, although only temporary,
may instill fear or ambivalence toward the nursing process. Ejection-
reflex failures are also related to the infant's dislike of breast
feeding, since the infant responds favorably to a consistent supply of
milk. Breast feeding is significantly more successful when the amount
of milk obtained from one feeding to another does not fluctuate. (Newton
and Newton, 1967, p. 1182).
Active, satisfied infants establish the
sucking reflex and rhythm quickly and seek the nipple when it is withdrawn.
The satisfaction received is likely to increase the infant's desire
to suckle his mother frequently and fully, thus stimulating the
secretion of milk. The reaction of older infants is even more pronounced
than that of newborn infants. The total body may show alertness
and motion-rhythmic motions of hands, fingers, feet, and toes
occurring along with the rhythm of sucking. After feeding, there is a
relaxation that has been likened to the relaxation characteristic of
the conclusion of satisfactory sexual response. (Newton and Newton,
1967).
Though the sucking experience may give the infant pleasure, especially
orally, and though penile erections are common in conditions related
to the sucking experience, we must be cautious in attributing
penile erections to stimulation resulting from the sucking experience.
In other words, we may agree with those who state categorically that
there is organic pleasure in infant-other experiences without necessarily
agreeing that the pleasure is sexual in any erotic sense. (Stern,
p. 612). In some cases it may be, but in some cases it is not. It has
been reported that vigorous sucking by active infants is accompanied by
penile erection which may last throughout the sucking period and continue
for several minutes after the breast is removed. (Baliassnikova
and Model, as reported in Halverson, 1940 and Newton and Newton, 1967).
On the other hand, Halverson (1940) as a result of his experiments on
infant sucking reports that, though infants like to suck at the breast,
preferring it to the bottle, penile erection never occurred during
sucking at the breast. It is possible that the experimental situation
itself served to deter the full pleasurable response, since during the
experimental period the breast-fed infants reclined on the mother's lap
while the mother leaned forward so that her breast was above the baby's
face.