Johnson & Johnson recently launched a campaign, So Much More™, to educate parents on bath rituals that optimise their baby’s brain development. Research findings from Science of Senses™ indicate that a balance between familiar routine and novel simulation to the senses promotes a baby’s brain development. In short, the campaign advocates for parents to make bath time quality time that is filled with multi-sensorial stimulation to nurture a baby’s ability to learn, think and grow.
To make this happen, Johnson & Johnson has partnered with KPJ Ampang Puteri Specialist Hospital to redefine bath time from being a chore to an intimate and healthy experience. This partnership aims at engaging and educating mothers of a new approach to baby care.
Johnson & Johnson’s Science of Senses™ research has shown that multi-sensorial stimulation is essential in the first three years of life to support communication, understanding, social development and emotional well-being. Multi-sensorial stimulation – what a baby feels, smells, hears and sees – helps promote the long-term survival of synaptic connections.
- Touch: Babies experiencing routine touch and massage is 50% more likely to make eye contact and have an overall positive expression.
- Smell: Familiar scents improve mood, calmness and alertness. Studies have shown that babies bathed with a fragranced bath product displayed 30% more engagement cues after and spent nearly 25% less time crying before sleep.
- Auditory: Talking back and forth with the baby during bath time can help with language development. Studies show that infants who are spoken with more have larger vocabularies by 24 months of age.
- Sight: Infants respond to visual stimulation and demonstrate enhanced neural processing when stared at with a direct gaze. This advances eye-hand coordination and observation skills that is crucial for social development.
As much as 85% of a baby’s brain is developed by age three. As such, every experience leading up to this time helps to shape baby’s brain. Johnson & Johnson commissioned a Global Bath Time survey to better understand new parents’ psyche and actions in nurturing their baby. It revealed a knowledge gap amongst Malaysian parents when caring for infants:
- Nearly 1 in 2 parents in Malaysia (48%) agree that mobile devices often distract them from paying attention to their child. However, bath time is an opportune moment when quality time can be spent as parents 70% of parents say they rarely or never use their mobile devices.
- While 94% of parents think the importance of bath time transcends cleansing to cultivating a bond, only 30% relate the session to brain development.
- Only 23% of parents understand that baby massages are extremely important to their child’s brain development while 45% say bath is part of bed time routine.
The collaboration between Johnson & Johnson and KPJ Ampang Puteri Specialist Hospital will see the enhancement of the neonatal care facilities at the hospital, training of neonatal staff and education amongst new mothers on Science of the SensesTM. With opportunities to use smell, touch, sight and sound, this partnership highlights bath as a multi-sensorial playground that helps parents and babies to connect and bond.
Visit the Johnson’s Baby website for more details on the campaign.
