It often seems like I have a psychic bond with people I'm close to. In fact, I often feel that I know what strangers are feeling. Anthropologists would say that I am probably remarkably good at reading the expressions and body language of others.
Rupert Sheldrake of Mind Power News says that mothers often feel they can tell when their babies need them, even when they're far away. Often, their milk "lets down" while they're apart from baby, a process mediated by oxytocin. He writes:
Some nursing mothers claim that when they are away from the baby they often know when the baby needs them because their milk lets down.
So, Sheldrake did a survey of 100 mothers; he found that about 16 percent experienced their milk letting down while away and finding out later that the baby had been crying at that time.
Of the women who said their milk let down when their baby needed them, 15 out of 16 breast fed their babies for more than 6 months. By contrast, out of the19 mothers who said their babies did not need them when their milk let down, only 9 breast-fed for more than 6 months. These differences were very significant statistically (chi-squared 8.67; p<0.005).
Sheldrake posits that this synchronicity could be the result of mother and baby's systems becoming attuned; it's also possible, he says, that mothers simply notice and remember the times when this coincidence occurred.
