The human brain growth spurt begins in the last trimester and continues to the third year (Schore, 2012). Day care provided by current American society increases the risk of insecure attachment when it begins in the first year and has an extensive duration. Nonmaternal and nonparental care in the first year is a risk for insecure attachment and insecure-avoidant infants who have received such care express more negative affect and upon reunion engage less in object play with the mother. Even infants who use in home baby-sitters for more than twenty hours per week show more avoidance upon reunion and are more likely to be classified as displaying insecure attachment. There has also been a link reported between early day care and aggression and noncompliance. Elevated insecure patterns are consistently found in child care children. Schore writes that caregiving is not just about the first few months but the first two years of life – ‘an essential problem for the future of human societies’ (p.362).
Care initiated early in life and experienced for many hours, in particular in child care centres is linked with higher levels of externalising behaviour problems (Schore, 2012). This is not simply the result of low-quality care. There has been shown to be a link between day care and elevated cortisol levels. Schore cites other authors who claim that the ‘stressful environment’ of day care is known to jeopardise children’s development. Early entry into day-care interferes with the 6 month policy of breast feeding recommended by the American academy of paediatrics. Breast milk is a source of nutrients essential to the developing brain and research shows that shorter duration of breastfeeding may predict mental health problems throughout childhood and adolescence. Developmental difficulties may be the result of chronic stress which has a detrimental impact on brain activity, emotional development and well-being.
One study demonstrating the effects of stress in the perinatal period shows that brief daily separations induced high stress for prolonged periods in the infant (Schore, 2012). This stress was linked with anxiety in adulthood despite the fact that the infants received increased maternal care afterwards. The authors conclude that exposure to stress in the postnatal period overrides the capacity of maternal care, programming anxiety behaviour through the inhibition of the normal growth spurt at this time. Research shows that maternal employment in the first year after birth is linked with developmental risks like insecure attachment and negatively impacting children’s cognitive abilities. The ‘decrement’ in the early care environment is demonstrated by less-than-optimal early development of the right brain. The long-term impact of this is an increase in the number of people with a neurobiological predisposition for psychiatric disorders.
A large array of social problems have their genesis in the ‘changing ecology of childhood’ according to UNICEF (Schore, 2012). Trauma in the early years is being linked with increases in psychosocial problems in the US. There is agreement across a range of disciplines that the sequelae of traumatic attachment experiences endure and set the stage for later psychopathology. Childhood trauma disrupts the architecture of the brain, impacts the organ systems, creates stress systems that have lower thresholds for responding that last throughout life, increasing the risk for stress related disease and cognitive impairments. Research suggests that it may not be possible to outgrow these early faults and if it is possible, it requires significant intervention. Early life trauma lies at the heart of a spectrum of psychiatric and psychosomatic disorders. Developmental neuroscience shows that prenatal and postnatal critical periods are the most ‘vital and vulnerable’ years. Critical periods originally indicated ‘bounded times in development’ when tissues rapidly growing in the organism are most vulnerable to influence by the external environment.
Adaptive mental health can be seen in resilient strategies for coping with stress and novelty, while maladaptation is seen in deficits in coping (Schore, 2012). The first scenario is a ‘resilience factor’ for coping with stressors throughout the lifespan while the maladaptive coping strategies is a risk factor for disrupted development and vulnerability to the deficits in coping ‘that define later-forming psychopathologies’ (p.366). This illustrates the Darwinian principle that it is those most responsive to change that survive. When children are presented with ‘manageable, graded emotional challenges’ they can increase their resilience but not when they are overwhelmed – severe attachment stressors decrease adaptive capacities. Reduced levels of nurturance and social interaction in infancy alter the developmental trajectory of the right brain producing deficits in affect regulation that are linked with developmental psychopathologies. Schore refers to a ‘developmental dogma’ that children can cope with deviations in the quality of early care without altering their developmental resilience in the face of adversity ignores the ‘ongoing dramatic’ increases in childhood psychopathology including bipolar disorder, ADHD and autism, which all demonstrate deficits in right brain functioning.
The high prevalence in mental disorders in youth is accompanied by a child obesity epidemic and researchers are now seeing insecure attachment as a risk factor for obesity (Schore, 2012). It is being proposed that obesity is the result of a dysfunction in the right prefrontal cortex. The emotional bond between infant and caregiver and its impact on the developing right brain impacts socioemotional and physical health over the lifespan. Attachment is more than just the provision of safety and security but brain development itself is being impacted by attachment transactions in the first two years. Schore concludes that the earliest stages of human life are critical because they contain our possible futures. Where, he asks, is the best place to invest our resources so as to optimise the future of human societies?
References
Schore, A. N. (2012). The science of the art of psychotherapy (Norton series on interpersonal neurobiology). W. W. Norton & Company.