The evidence is convergent. Multiple independent sources reach the same conclusion, the underlying mechanism is well-characterized, and even the field's most cautious voices treat it as worth doing.
In other words, the mother is regulating the infant's autonomic nervous system primarily, and the infant is also regulating the mother's autonomic nervous system, a small coup from a baby or a cry, which is a stress cry from a baby will definitely regulate the autonomic nervous system of the mother.
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the mother is a regulator of that and the way that she is a regulator of that baby is that she's tracking that baby's arousal levels she's tracking that baby's emotions as they change in time moment to moment and then she's synchronizing with that and that allows her now to be able to regulate it
the mother would make you know sort of um sounds not necessarily words like these kinds of things or humming or or you know bouncing lullabies these sorts of things that's the pro that the pro and then the uh the related release of things like serotonin perhaps oxytocin as well we can talk more about those but then also how critical it is uh for the mother to be able to regulate the baby's um transition to up States like looking at the baby as it comes out of a nap and saying good you know good morning and really wide eyes lots of gesturing lots of gesticulating that is you know um bringing the voice level up and the baby going you know really waking up in a in a kind of a steeper slope of of arousal
how are they doing it by face voice and gesture the mother is now reading the expressions of the baby's face the visual the auditory the pro of the voice and then the tactiles so she's picking up these kinds of communications that are coming out of that baby tactile gestural Visual and she's now picking up those Communications now she's resonating with those Communications and then she is going to regulate those Communications
There are now brain imaging studies examining the brains of infants and the brains of mothers as they interact and showing that the physical contact between the two, the breathing of the mother and child, the heart rate of the mother and child and indeed the pupil size of the mother and child are actually actively getting coordinated. In other words, the mother is regulating the infant's autonomic nervous system primarily and the infant is also regulating the mother's autonomic nervous system.