Art's root: mother-infant interactions

As Ellen and I gear up for our second annual arT partY, I found Natalie Angier's NYT article The Dance of Evolution, or How Art Got Its Start particularly interesting. All the more so for the following excerpt:

Perhaps the most radical element of Ms. Dissanayake’s evolutionary framework is her idea about how art got its start. She suggests that many of the basic phonemes of art, the stylistic conventions and tonal patterns, the mental clay, staples and pauses with which even the loftiest creative works are constructed, can be traced back to the most primal of collusions — the intimate interplay between mother and child. (more)

The article goes on to link the simple interactions a mother and infant share -- facial expressions, tone of voice, body language -- to the heart of what art is: aesthetic operation. My understanding of the short article is that Ms. Dissanayake would claim that art is a response, particularly to an external stimulus. I don't know if I agree. Art I create certainly IS a response, but the art I am most proud of minimizes the amount to which it is a response to an external force and more often the source is unknown and internal. On the other hand is there anything someone can posses internally that is not in some way influenced by external forces?

What I would agree with is that mother-infant interactions are extremely influential. As famed French obstetrician Michel Odent explains in Ricky Lake's recent Business of Being Born, at the moment of birth, mothers release high levels of oxytocin, known as the "love hormone." At that moment, mothers are literally addicted to their babies and love (if they're not on an epidural). Sounds like a bad time to snatch a baby away to measure, weigh, slap, poke, and prod. Why is that our first moment of contact with the world is so commonly traumatic and disrupted?

-dr-