The stress of coming home, the novelty, and the sheer amount of commitment a newborn requires lead many mothers to underestimate the importance of interacting with their baby during the first weeks of life, and the influence this has on both their emotional and cognitive development.
It's often forgotten that during the first month of life, communication with the baby happens simply through the way their primary needs are met. During this period, in fact, the newborn doesn't yet have structured behaviors aimed at communication, even though the eye contact they establish with the parent (especially during feeds), their smiles, or the movements of their mouth or tongue are sometimes interpreted in these terms. This doesn't mean, however, that they don't perceive what's around them, or that they aren't able to tell the difference between pleasant and unpleasant sensations.
From birth, in fact, it's possible to interact very intensely with the baby, essentially through physical contact: how you hold the little one, both to feed and to cuddle them, how you touch and caress them when changing them, what tone of voice you use to speak to them. If you observe closely, you can notice that the baby reacts differently depending on who is caring for them. Indeed, even though they can't yet recognize the faces of the people looking after them, they are already able to sense the tension or calm in the other person, which triggers different feelings in them, of alarm or of relaxation.
Since it is mostly the mother who takes care of feeding, changing, washing, and putting the baby to sleep, it is from her that the baby receives the imprinting that will later shape the way they form relationships with the outside world.
As one can easily imagine, the state of mind in which she experiences her role turns out to be fundamental, because it is this that she communicates to the baby. Feeling part of a confident, serene, fulfilled mother is very different, and far easier and more pleasant, than learning about the world in the arms of a tense, dissatisfied, frightened mother!
So once again, mothers are invited to remember that in the first weeks of life, the baby lives in a state of fusion with her, sensing and absorbing her states of mind. Looking within oneself with objectivity, recognizing the feelings one experiences without hiding them, but rather trying to work through them, is therefore of fundamental importance in order to offer one's little one a secure base on which to build their future relationships.
cf. L. Murray, Le prime relazioni del bambino, Cortina