ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 explores our personal, adult, intersubjective relations with newborns, taking the newborn gaze as an event that may awaken our awareness to the consciousness of an infant. This chapter also considers how the newborn’s body as torso, hands, feet, and mouth are perceptually active in a contacting way. This relational inquiry explores the possibility of the health professional being aware of the infant ‘seeing’ in all manner of moments, yet also cautioning the reader that such awareness must reflect a questioning attitude. Methodologically, this chapter uses images and anecdotes to explore the lived meaning of a phenomenon, a lived experience or event.
