Neglect
'leaves a physical mark'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4456082.stm
bbc
- 22nd November 2005
Children
neglected in their early years are left with physical as well as
psychological marks, research suggests.
Lack of
a loving caregiver directly affects the body's production of hormones
thought to be important for forming social bonds, a US team found.
Children
raised in orphanages had lower levels of vasopressin and oxytocin
than others, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports.
This was
despite the children later being placed with stable families.
Physical
effect
This suggests
the effects may be lasting to some extent, the University of Wisconsin-Madison
authors said.
They believe
failure to receive typical care as a child can disrupt normal development
of these hormonal systems which, in turn, can interfere with the
calming and comforting effects that typically emerge between children
and their caregivers.
Compared
with the control group, the 18 four-year-old children raised in
orphanages showed lower levels of vasopressin in their urine.
Researchers
believe this hormone is essential for recognising individuals in
a familiar social environment.
During
an experiment, the children were asked to sit on the laps of either
their mother (or adopted mother) or an unfamiliar woman and play
an interactive computer game.
The game
directed the children to engage in various types of physical contact
with the adult they were sitting with, such as whispering or tickling
each other and patting each other on the head.
This type
of interaction between a child and his or her mother should normally
cause a rise in oxytocin. This was seen in the family-raised children,
but orphanage-raised children did not display the same response.
Lead researcher
Dr Seth Pollak said: "It's extremely important that people
don't think this work implies that these children are somehow permanently
delayed.
"All
we are saying is that, in the case of some social problems, here
is a window into understanding the biological basis for why they
happen and how we might design treatment."
The researchers
added: "The present data provide a potential explanation for
how the nature and quality of children's environments shape the
brain-behavioural systems underlying complex human emotions."
Dr Julie
Turner-Cobb, of Bath University, and Dr David Jessop, at Bristol
University, recently carried out research showing children can be
stressed out by their own mothers' emotional exhaustion.
Childcare
helped to reduce stress (measured by a hormone present in saliva)
among children whose working mothers are in jobs with low satisfaction.
Dr Jessop
said: "Although there has been a lot of psychosocial work in
the past, we are now bringing into play hormonal data.
"So
we really have two weapons in our armoury. This provides a very
powerful approach to look at the way upbringing and domestic circumstances
can affect the way children grow up."
He said
larger studies over a longer period of time were needed to determine
whether children are stressed by their circumstances and whether
introducing more social support would help buffer this.
