This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vidanthan.

These days we know how important it is for young children to feel loved.

Parents are encouraged to sit with their kids, read to them, hug them, make them feel

safe.

But believe it or not, this wasn't always the case.

It's so fascinating to look back on that period and think to yourself, how could you

get that so wrong?

This is writer Deborah Blum.

She's looked closely at what caused the revolution in psychology around how best to parent children.

The early books told mothers not to hold their children at all if they could avoid it,

that it would ruin the moral fiber of the child.

We'll hear more about the effects of loving touch and its absence in a moment.

We turn to one of our colleagues, Alison McCatum, for a personal story about the importance

of affection, touch and attachment.

Alison's an editor at NPR and she has a secret.

I'm just going to come out and say it.

I sleep with my blanket, my baby blanket.

Here's what it looks like.

It's white woven cotton, it's a little threadbare.

It is the softest thing in the world.

Even on the hottest days, it feels cool.

When I bury my nose in it, it smells like comfort.

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