Once you hold your newborn baby for the first time, you might keep him snuggled up next to you for hours at a time. There is sound reason for this maternal instinct as snuggling, or love and affection, is as important to babies as the food they eat as and is necessary for healthy development and brain maturation. Just as an infant cannot be deprived of proper nourishment, a recent warning from a health expert claims that lack of attention can be equally detrimental.
Clinical psychologist at Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust Dr. Cheryl Power explained to delegates at the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ annual meeting that health care professionals often concentrate on mothers with mental health issues paying little attention to how this affects the baby.
Babies who are deprived of love and stimulation during the first year of life are at risk for
poor brain development and social skills. As Dr. Power states: “A fetus will have approximately 100 billion neurons in their brain, however these neurons are meaningless until after birth when the environment they are exposed to will influence their brain development″. Essentially, infants need to be exposed to social interaction and environmental stimuli to ensure their brains develop properly.
Mothers who face mental health difficulties have a compromised ability to provide interaction and stimulus for their infant which can lead to a negative cycle of mother child interactions. Dr. Powers warned colleagues at the meeting to avoid an isolated approach to treatment where only the mother’s issues are looked at. Instead, she urged health care professionals and social workers to focus on the whole mother-baby relationship as well as the whole family.
Examples of some difficulties new mothers face include anxiety resulting in over-responsiveness or depression which can lead to not picking up on infant cues. Either extreme sets up the negative cycle between mother and baby where the baby begins to alter his own actions exacerbating an already anxious mother. The whole family approach to intervention will provide a dual benefit; mothers who can successfully engage in the social role as mother are much more likely to overcome mental health issues, and this recovery will have a major impact on the development of the baby.
Tags: brain development
