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Why is touch so important for babies and young children? Because it is linked to healthy physical and emotional development, Anne O’Connor explains

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Touch is important for all of us, at every age, but our experience of touch in our earliest years has huge implications for our brain development, as well as our general health and well-being.

Human skin has evolved over millions of years into this profoundly complex organ (the largest in the body) that works in harmony with our central nervous system to not only protect what is inside us, but also to receive and transmit messages directly to the brain in response to the world around us.

Just as importantly, the brain and the nervous system need the stimulation that comes through our skin to actually be able to grow and develop. ‘Research has shown that touch is an important aspect of allowing as well as promoting normal growth and development in both animals and human infants’ (Greydanus and Merrick 2014).

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