It makes a lot of sense to me that a lack of holding/skin to skin contact as a newborn could have a very powerful impact on a child's development. As stormy said, we all chase as adults what we didn't get as children.

I think my own mother was an excellent mother to myself and my brothers when we were little. (She's actually a great mother and grandmother now, but that's another story). She nursed us during a time when pediatricians were touting the benefits of "scientifically designed" formula. From my own experience nursing my son, the benefits of skin-to-skin contact, multiple times per day, seem very apparent. She is naturally very warm and loving (grade school teacher, of the beloved sort) and I think she was probably close to perfect at meeting our needs when we were young, before school age. She was, and is, an excellent caretaker. I think it was when I began to talk and think for myself and needed more than food and love that her own issues started getting in the way of her mothering.

Anne