Why Love Matters: How affection shapes a baby's brain

by Sue Gerhardt

even short separations from the source of food and protection are very frightening for any breastfed young mammals, including humans.

There is strong evidence that separation from those on whom we depend raises cortisol.

If this happens repeatedly, even for only five hours a week, his cortisol feedback sensitivity increases.

So it seems as if cortisol in general is a by-product of an anxiety about safety, survival and the social bonds which protect.

their children do indeed find the experience stressful.

They did not necessarily look stressed or behave as if they were stressed, but their stress response was activated and their cortisol levels rose as the day wore on, especially if they were children with poor social skills.

young children’s cortisol levels in day care nurseries are most affected if they are looked after by nursery workers with an intrusive and overcontrolling style of care

what really mattered was the quality of the replacement caregiving and whether there was someone really paying attention to the child.

Children who were placed with childminders who were highly responsive to them had normal cortisol levels

Her work in nurseries found that even securely attached children struggle to manage stressful experiences when their parent isn’t available; however, if they have a secure relationship with an alternative parental figure such as the main caregiver in a nursery, this acts as a buffer again...

there may even be a critical period during which the HPA stress response system is being set up.

there is other evidence to suggest that the HPA system adopts its ‘set point’ by the age of 6 months.

Environmental influences which have affected the mother’s genes and her HPA axis can be passed on to her foetus; even more extraordinary, this altered stress responsiveness can be transmitted by the foetus to the next generation too

traumatically stressed fathers could be passing on their altered genes to their offspring through their sperm

Since unpredictability is one of the main factors which generates high cortisol, it seems probable that these may also be children with high cortisol levels.

High cortisol levels are linked to relatively high activity in the right frontal brain, the part of the brain which generates fearfulness, irritability and withdrawal from others

Low cortisol has been associated with low grade, frequent emotional (and sometimes physical) abuse and neglect, as well as with unresponsive parenting.

only the monkeys who were separated from their mothers in very early life (for up to two hours a day) developed low cortisol baselines.

It may seem paradoxical that the most destructive children are those who try to suppress their feelings.

But the most aggressive boys at school are not those who are high in stress hormones, but low in them.

It also probably arose from very early experiences of neglect, bullying or chronic hostility.

One important study (McBurnett et al. 2000) found that the earlier that antisocial behaviour develops in boys, the more likely it is to be associated with low cortisol.

there is a strong link between low cortisol and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD),

If a mother figure does not teach her baby to put bodily experiences into words, then he may not develop the capacity to organise his feelings and contain tension through his own conscious mental processes without constantly relying on others.

the ability to do this effectively is strongly influenced by our parent figures and their own capacity to tolerate their baby’s cries and demands and their way of responding.

to be able to tolerate and accept whatever feelings come, knowing that when they start to become overwhelming there are ways of dealing with them – either through strategies of distraction, or of finding relief through other people.

if you live with a hostile parent, it makes sense instinctively to learn to keep a tactful distance.

What they all have in common is an underlying lack of self-esteem,

at the most conservative estimate, at least 35 per cent of children are insecure, in a variety of cultures

Mostly this is because their own difficulties in regulating their own feelings get passed on to their children.

Self-esteem is not just thinking well of oneself in the abstract; it is a capacity to respond to life’s challenges.

Because they have not had enough experience of being well cared for and well regulated, their original baby needs remain active within.

The paradox is that people need to have a satisfying experience of dependency before they can become truly independent and largely self-regulating.

Good timing is a critical aspect of parenting,

The ability to judge when a baby or child has the capacity to manage a little more self-control, thoughtfulness or independence is not something that books on child development can provide:

Unfortunately, leaving a baby to cry or to cope by himself for more than a very short period usually has the reverse effect:

it undermines the baby’s confidence in the parent and in the world, leaving him more dependent not less.

In the absence of the regulatory partner, a baby can do very little to regulate himself or herself other than to cr...

He found that a very high proportion (72 per cent) of those he studied had had a difficult relationship with at least one of their parents, which left them feeling emotionally isolated.

when anger or distress are not expressed or dealt with in some constructive way, stress may become chronic and the stress hormone cortisol may remain in the system.

But when cortisol levels are not high enough to turn off inflammation, a state of chronic inflammation can ensue, providing a fertile ground for all sorts of more life-threatening diseases such as heart disease and cancer to flourish

We know that high levels of cortisol during infancy can affect the parts of the immune system that are developing at that time,

The more early exposure it has to psychosocial stress, the more exaggerated its future inflammatory response. The two systems are intertwined

harsh or stressful early upbringing programmes the baby’s immune system.

Adults whose own sense of self-esteem is rocky are those who are most likely to devalue their child, whether by hitting or by putting the child down verbally.

Harshness takes root in insecurity and stress, no matter what the living conditions

Study assessed over 17,000 adults and found that early exposure to negative behaviours such as violence in the home or abuse and instability had a cumulative effect on a child’s future health.

Eventually, they become more vulnerable to a whole range of diseases in adulthood

Conversely, a child who experiences loving and supportive parenting is not only buffered against stress but also has a more robust immune system.

Being touched and held lovingly releases oxytocin in the lymph system, which protects against inflammation (Miller