Prevent Feeding Issues for Your Baby By Supporting Homeostasis
By Argie Pitsakis CCC-SLP, CLC
At Kids Feeding Wellness, we’re dedicated to empowering parents like you with science-based knowledge and easy-to-implement tools to support your child's feeding development and overall well-being. As parents, understanding the role of homeostasis in preventing feeding issues is crucial for setting strong feeding foundations for your baby.
The Transition From Automatic to Voluntary Feeding Reflexes
Feeding your newborn is an intricate and essential act. Whether breast or bottle feeding, it involves the precise coordination of sucking, swallowing, and breathing– a set of new skills your baby must master.
Babies are born with a natural sucking reflex that is triggered anytime the infant’s tongue or palate is stimulated. This makes feeding somewhat automatic in the early months, serving as a survival mechanism aimed to support the infant in receiving the nourishment they need until independent mastery is achieved. Over time, as these oral motor behaviors are repeated, the neural circuits in the infant's brain strengthen, and reflex behaviors such as sucking become voluntary, meaning they can now control how and when they suck.
Despite the automatic nature of feeding in the first few months of life, there are many factors that can influence an infant's ability to feed successfully. This is where homeostasis comes in.
The Balanced Baby Guide
8 Strategies for Maintaining Homeostatic Balance for Successful Bottle Feeding
Learn how to create a stable environment that ensures smoother feedings and leads to a healthier, happier baby.
The Role of Homeostasis in Feeding Success
Your new baby relies on you to help them process all of the new changes and stimuli they are experiencing so they can focus on and develop essential feeding skills. By helping them achieve homeostasis, your baby can maintain calm, coordinated feeding behaviors essential to their growth and long-term feeding success.
The Science of Homeostasis
Homeostasis refers to the body's ability to maintain a stable internal environment despite internal and external changes. For infants, achieving homeostasis is a critical developmental task, especially in the first three months of life. During this period, infants are learning to regulate their internal bodily functions in response to signals from the inside (such as heart rate, digestion, hunger, and gas) and outside (like lights, sounds, touch, and movement). These internal and external sensations are all new to the newborn infant in combination with the infant’s health status and genetic predispositions, such as temperament, can become overwhelming and throw a child’s internal state off balance and make feeding difficult. Due to the infant’s immature and still developing systems, they rely heavily on their caregivers to help them regain homeostasis..
The Synactive Model of Behavioral Development
To better understand how homeostasis influences feeding, we can refer to the Synactive Model of Behavioral Development by Heidelise Als (1982) - see Figure 1. This model explains that an infant's development is organized into four subsystems:
Autonomic: Regulates basic physiological functions such as heart rate, breathing, and digestion.
Motor: Controls movement and muscle tone.
Behavioral State: Involves the ability to achieve different levels of consciousness, from deep sleep to alert wakefulness.
Attention/Interaction: Refers to the ability to engage with the environment and people around them.
The organization (or disorganization) of one system influences the other systems through a process called synaction. When these systems are well-organized, the infant can achieve homeostasis. As shown in Figure 1, achieving homeostasis is reliant on the balance of the system that precedes it with the autonomic system at its core. When the autonomic system is stable, the motor system (including the oral motor movements for feeding) are more organized, which then supports the infant’s behavioral state, and thus their ability to attend and interact with the world around them. This includes the attention and focus needed to feed safely.
| Subsystem | Organized | Disorganized |
|---|---|---|
| Autonomic | - Stable heart rate - Regular breathing patterns - Efficient digestion with minimal discomfort |
- Fluctuating heart rate - Irregular breathing - Frequent digestive issues like gas, bloating, constipation, and reflux |
| Motor | - Smooth, coordinated movements - Consistent muscle tone - Minimal jitteriness or tremors |
- Jerky or uncoordinated movements - Floppy or stiff muscle tone - Frequent tremors or startles |
| Behavioral State | - Predictable sleep-wake cycles - Smooth transitions between states - Alert and focused during wakeful periods |
- Erratic sleep patterns - Difficulty transitioning between states - Overly fussy or lethargic during wakefulness |
| Attention/Interaction | - Engages with caregivers and environment - Responds to social cues and stimuli - Shows interest in surroundings |
- Limited interaction with caregivers - Poor response to social cues - Easily overwhelmed by stimuli |
Model of the synactive organization of behavioral development. From: H. Als: Toward a synactive theory of development. Infant Mental Health J 1982;3:229-243.
A disorganized infant may struggle to focus on feeding, but with the right support, they can find balance within their four subsystems. Once organized, they can feed more contently and gradually build the skills needed for feeding mastery.
Common Causes of Loss of Homeostasis
Many things can throw an infant’s homeostasis off balance, some of which include:
Insufficient Physical Closeness: Lack of skin-to-skin contact and close physical proximity to caregivers can hinder the infant's ability to regulate their physiological systems, affecting feeding success.
Misinterpretation of Hunger and Fullness Cues: Caregivers who are not attuned to their baby's hunger and fullness signals may either underfeed or overfeed, disrupting the baby's natural feeding rhythm.
Overstimulating Environment: High levels of noise, light, or activity can overwhelm an infant, making it hard for them to focus on feeding.
Digestive Issues: Problems like gas, reflux, constipation, or immature digestion can cause discomfort and disrupt the infant's ability to feed comfortably and effectively.
Medical Complexities: Illness and conditions like cardiac and respiratory issues, neurological disorders, and structural abnormalities among others can disrupt an infant's internal balance, making feeding difficult and uncomfortable.
Turn your baby’s feeding times into moments of worry-free connection with our Virtual Parent Coaching.
Supporting your baby's homeostasis will ensure successful feeding experiences and foster their long-term development.
By recognizing and addressing the factors that can disrupt an infant's delicate balance, you can create an environment that promotes calm, coordinated feeding behaviors. With the right guidance and attention to your baby's cues, you can help them navigate their early feeding challenges and build a solid foundation for their future health and well-being.
At Kids Feeding Wellness, we want your baby’s feeding times to be moments of worry-free connection. We are here to guide and support you every step of the way. Our bottle-feeding services are designed to meet your family's unique needs, ensuring that feeding time is a positive and nurturing experience for your baby. Let's work together to create a happy and healthy feeding routine.
-
Kleberg, Agneta. Promoting preterm infants' development and mother child interaction Newborn Individualized Developmental Care and Assessment Program.
