Oral stage

In Freudian psychoanalysis, the term oral stage denotes the first psychosexual development stage where in the mouth of the infant is his or her primary erogenous zone. Spanning the life period from birth to the age of 21 months, the oral stage is the first of the five Freudian psychosexual development stages: (i) the Oral, (ii) the Anal, (iii) the Phallic, (iv) the Latent, and (v) the Genital. Moreover, because it is the infant’s first human relationship — biological (nutritive) and psychological (emotional) — its duration depends upon the child-rearing mores of the mother’s society. Sociologically, the duration of infantile nursing is determined normatively, because the oral stage is especially important in societies that consider the stomach to be the seat of the emotions, as among some African and south-west Pacific Ocean societies that perceive the oral stage as medicinal.