Your Baby Borrows Your Nervous System: Understanding Co-Regulation from Pregnancy to 25

Birth changes where your baby lives. It doesn't change how much they rely on you.

In those first months, your baby's nervous system is still so immature that it can't settle itself. It does something remarkable instead: it borrows yours. Your heartbeat, your breathing, your voice, the tension (or softness) in your arms. Your baby reads all of it, constantly, and adjusts to match.