Moms and babies have a strong emotional connection. Facial expressions play a major role in this connection. Moms express their happiness, sadness and frustrations partly through their facial expressions. Babies engage their moms by mimicking their moms' facial expressions. When mom smiles, baby smiles. When mom laughs, baby giggles.
Botox temporarily paralyzes certain facial muscles that are used in making certain facial expressions. Ed Tronick, Ph.D. and his colleagues demonstrated in three minute demonstrations that mothers who have "still faces," this is with a flat affect and no facial movements negatively impacts the mom and baby connection. In the studies, the babies attempted to engage their moms to no avail, which resulted in frustrated, crying and withdrawal babies until moms re-engaged with their babies. If Botox paralyzes and/or limits moms' abilities to express emotion through their facial expressions then babies may get confused in their interactions with their moms.
Moms teach emotional cues partly through their facial expressions. If Botox hampers moms' ability to form facial expressions of happiness, sadness and anger, for example, then babies are missing important nonverbal communication. Moms' eyebrows lower when showing anger or disapproval when baby throws their sippy cup on the floor or crushes their Cheerios with the sippy cup. Also, moms can show sadness when baby gets their immunizations. This is a way mom can show empathy. Also, Botox is applied in the crow's feet on either side of the eyes then moms may not be able to show a true, authentic smile.
Getting Botox or any other cosmetic surgery procedure is an individual decision without a right or wrong answer. Just keep in the mind that your babies learn emotional cues from you. You may want to consider using enough Botox to lightly soften the wrinkles and still have muscle movement so you can express your emotions.
If you have any questions, you'll find me on Twitter at @blancacobb with #BlancaOn2. Or, on my facebook page.
Blanca Cobb is a WFMY News 2 Contributing Editor, body language expert and keynote speaker. Follow her @blancacobb. The opinions expressed in this article are exclusively hers.
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