Hi Gail,
This approach is further upstream, but California WIC (followed by other state WIC offices) had a campaign a few years ago called Baby Behavior to help new parents better recognize infant cues, rather than just giving babies bottles every time they cried. It had info on sleep cycles, reasons why babies cry, and how to tell if your baby needs a break (from being social). It seemed to me like Kathryn Barnard's work on infant cues reworked to be well-received and understood by a wider audience than just us maternal child/public health nurses and infant mental health advocates. I don't know if she is still there at UC Davis, but Jane Heinig worked with CA WIC to create the program.
By looking at infant feeding coupled with attachment, we can consider how connected (or not) we are to our babies and how food literally feeds that need that we have for connection and nurturing from the beginning. Parents that are unable to be as present and connected miss important cues when they 'plug the kid up' with a bottle and disengage. There are a lot of perceptions out there about babies crying to "be manipulative" and parents not wanting to "spoil" them and "hold them too much". Something my discharge nurse told me when my daughter was born 18 years ago. I do a lot of unteaching about this concept in my work. I think this is the root for many of us that struggle with food addiction. Food=love got stuck in our brain while it was being wired from the start.
When I first learned about Felitti's work, it made perfect sense to me that ACEs were discovered at an obesity clinic. Sexual abuse is one contributing factor to obesity and food addiction, but emotional neglect is a contributor as well. In my work with "high-ACE" parents, I have found that it can be very difficult to be present when their baby or child is upset. This is where helping parents learn about cues (and learning to recognize how they are feeling when their baby cries) can be very valuable for both kiddo and parents.
Thank you for tackling such an important issue!
Kim