Family partnership is essential to center equity within our growing ERH movement. For this reason, Nurture Connection is guided by the lived experiences of families. Parents and caregivers are our experts for helping create healthier communities, one family at a time.
Longitudinal Study of ERH
What Research Tells Us:
- Parental postpartum depression has been shown to negatively affect children’s mental health from infancy to adolescence. This risk appears to be higher among children whose families carry greater burdens of economic stress. Furthermore, early life stress for parents has been linked to postpartum depression, which then increases risk of mental health issues for the child.
- Parent-child closeness and maternal warmth in early years of life (another core aspect of Early Relational Health) foster prosocial behaviors in children like being kind and helpful to others. It also supports improved physical health, positive mental health, and fewer mental health challenges through adolescence.
- More needs to be understood about how the caregiver-child connection in infancy and early childhood (a core aspect of Early Relational Health) impacts the quality of later attachments in life. The Center for Early Relational Health at Columbia University is leading the nation’s most comprehensive life-course-focused research on early relationships, to pioneer scientific understanding of the mechanisms of Early Relational Health and its impacts on child development and outcomes.
How Does Early Relational Health Influence Health and Development Over the Lifespan?
Scientists have studied the long-term effects of Early Relational Health through longitudinal studies and have found the following affects:
Feeling safe and secure:
When babies have sensitive and responsive adults, they often feel more secure. Studies following children over time show that this feeling of security established in infancy can help them get along better with others as they grow up.
Learning and thinking:
Longitudinal studies suggest that good, caring interactions early on in life are linked to children doing better with language and thinking skills later, sometimes years down the road.
Building healthy brains and bodies:
During the first three years of life, children experience rapid development in every biological system of their growing brains and bodies. The relationships that surround children in these early years set the trajectory of their physical, emotional, and social development for the rest of their lives.
Handling feelings:
Long-term studies show that early caring relationships can help children get better at managing their feelings as they get older. Studies have watched to see how this ability changes over time.
Bouncing back from hard times:
Studies following people over time suggest that having caring relationships when you’re young can help you be stronger and handle stress and difficulties better throughout your life, even if you faced tough stuff as a child. These relationships seem to help protect against the harmful effects of stress.
Health over time:
Some long-term studies, like those that look at early childhood programs, have even shown that positive early experiences can lead to better health outcomes many years later.
