User talk:Humanimprinting

Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry (2007) 41 (Suppl. 2) Page A351. Thumbsucking and mammalian one-teat preference. Human and mammalian oral tactile imprining is presented as the best explanation for fixated thumb sucking. An early reference to "Human Imprinting: Thumbsucking explained by one-teat preference" was presented to the 6th Congress of the Federation of the Asia-Oceania Perinatal Societies on 26/10/1990. It is now also recorded in the textbook "Breastfeeding A Guide for the Medical Profession by authors RA & RM Lawrence. As yet there has been no recorded academic analytical criticism of Mammalian Oral Tactile Imprinting.

To explain the concept of mammalian oral tactile imprinting, the first step is to examine the popular paradigms of why infants thumbsuck for comfort and immediately preceding sleep: (1) The need to suck: Infants have an emotional fixaton on one digit out of ten. If it were only a need to suck then any sucking object wouid suffice. (2) It's normal behaviour: Why then in cultures where the baby is carried with free access to the mother's nipples does it not occur. (3) It's hunger: There is no nutrition in thumbs and dummies and thumbsucking occurs after feedings as well. (4) It's learning: In which case we should be able to teach infants to suck on any object but this is not the case. Infants become emotionally fixated on one sucking object and it is notoriously difficult to get them to switch to an alternative object. (5) It does no harm: This is not true as infants develop facial malocclusions and excoriated skin and nails from thumbsucking. Once a thumbsucking fixation is set, in many cases, it continues on into adulthood which is an embarrassment for the thumbsucker.

The best explanation for thumbsucking is mammalian one-teat preference. This is also referred to in the literature, depending upon the professional background of the author such as, veterinary science, ethology, medicine, etc. as teat fidelity, teat fixation, teat ownership, teat territoriality, nipple confusion and so on. Across the mammalian spectrum, altricial, semi-altricial, premature and precocious, there is a newborn preference for a fixation on one teat which in the case of teat transport and in the case where the litter size is much greater than the number of teats, it is a matter of survival to find and hold onto a teat. When humans rear other mammal newborn the result is very often a thumb or penis or tail or some other body part sucking - many videos of human reared self body part sucking animals can be seen on Utube. The gene for this newborn behaviour is shared by mammals (Piagge et al 2004).

It is known by ultrasound and the callouses on the digits of some newborn, that premature oral imprinting can take place even before birth. but in any other mammal than the problem solving human, where the mother takes an active role in inserting the nipple, bottle teat, or a non-nutritive sucking object into the baby's mouth, this premature imprint would not be compatible with survival.

Piagge A, Gordon E, Dean W, Boiani R, Cinti S, Peters J, Kelsey G. The imprinted signaling protein XL alpha s is required for postnatal adaptation to feeding. Nat Gen. 2004 Aug:36(8): 793-5


 * If you think this helps then you should add it to the article, rather than here. Personally, I think the only way to save the article is to completely rewrite it. Have a look at the neutral tone that other Wikipedia articles are written in and then see if you can explain the idea without advocating a particular view. --DanielRigal (talk) 00:40, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Human Imprinting\
A proposed deletion template has been added to the article Human Imprinting\, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice should explain why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the  notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. If you agree with the deletion of the article, and you are the only person who has made substantial edits to the page, please add  to the top of Human Imprinting\. DanielRigal (talk) 00:36, 26 January 2008 (UTC)