A recent study shows that brains of babies who receive motherly love and nurturing, grow at twice the rate of young ones who are left unattended. Children with a stable and loving motherly figure in their lives were found to have more growth in the hippocampus, an area in the brain associated with learning, memories and regulating emotions.
First author Dr Joan Luby, Washington University child psychiatrist at St Louis Children's Hospital, said, “The parent-child relationship during the preschool period is vital, even more important than when the child gets older. We think that's due to greater plasticity in the brain when kids are younger, meaning that the brain is affected more by experiences very early in life. That suggests it's vital that kids receive support and nurturing during those early years.”
Brains of 127 children were scanned from when they were about to enter school, to their early adolescence. Their mothers were closely observed and interactions between them and their children were videotaped. Parents who were able to maintain composure and complete assigned tasks while offering emotional support to their children were rated as more nurturing and supportive. It was found that the children whose mothers were graded as more supportive than average, had increases in growth of the hippocampus, more than two times greater than those children whose mothers were rated only slightly below average on the nurturing scale.
The researchers also found that the growth trajectory in the hippocampus was associated with healthier emotional functioning when the children entered their teen years. "Early maternal support affects the child's brain development," concluded Dr Luby.
