Helping New Parents Is More Crucial Than It Seems

Fire can warm or consume, water can quench or drown, wind can caress or cut. And so it is with human relationships; we can both create and destroy, nurture and terrorize, traumatize and heal each other. ―Bruce Perry

Just as fire can warm us or burn us, relationships can harm or heal.

Source: Guido Jansen / Unsplash

Hundreds of infants are being born every minute throughout the world. Some will be born into cold climates, some warm climates.

Some are greeted by large families, some by small families, and some are placed into temporary care facilities. These infants are welcomed by a variety of cultures, religions, social classes, traditions, and practices.

Some infants will be lovingly welcomed by warm smiles, comforting embraces, and predictable care. Unfortunately, some babies will be thrust into environments marred by chaos, unpredictability, neglect, or even abuse.

The Double-Sided Coin of Adaptability

Over the eons of human evolution, our species honed a remarkable capacity to adapt to a kaleidoscope of environments. Our stress response systems are shaped by our early life experiences to help us survive in the world we were brought into. However, behaviors that are adaptive in early life can quickly become maladaptive later.

When our early life experiences are safe and predictable, our stress responses become more resilient, we’re better equipped to self-regulate, and the lifelong wear and tear on our bodies is milder.

A different story emerges when we’re brought into stressful environments. The impacts of toxic stress are especially devastating within the first year of life when healthy brain development is imperative. As child psychiatrist Bruce Perry wrote in The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog,

The fact that the brain develops sequentially—and also so rapidly in the first years of life—explains why extremely young children are at such great risk of suffering lasting effects of trauma: their brains are still developing. The same miraculous plasticity that allows young brains to quickly learn love and language, unfortunately, also makes them highly susceptible to negative experiences as well.

The long-term effects of early-life stress include:

• A smaller prefrontal cortex, which impacts our ability to control impulses, focus our attention and make predictions
• An overactive amygdala, which creates hypervigilant and fearful responses
• A smaller hippocampus, which makes it harder for us to store long-term memories
• A smaller corpus callosum and impaired ability to integrate complex information
• Abnormal levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which alone can lead to a host of physiological problems

Early life stress can lead to lifelong scars on the brain and nervous system.

Anna Shvets / Unsplash

The severity of these impairments will depend on many factors, such as:

The age of the child at the time of the maltreatment, whether the maltreatment was a one-time incident or chronic, the identity of the abuser (e.g., parent or other adults), whether the child had a dependable nurturing individual in his or her life, the type and severity of the maltreatment, the intervention, how long the maltreatment lasted [and other factors].

These changes in brain structures and functions help infants cope in stressful environments, but the relentless strain on their stress response will ultimately impair their health and longevity. Under chronic stress, the body prioritizes immediate survival, rather than long-term wellbeing.

Helping New Parents

Becoming a new parent can be demanding and overwhelming at times. Parents who are strained and dysregulated will have a harder time giving the supportive and consistent care their infant needs. New parents must receive support throughout the first year of their little one’s life to set up their child for success.

Friends, neighbors, family members, and community members can help new parents by:

• Expressing compassion, validating parents' experiences, and providing a safe space for conversation
• Gifting essential items such as car seats, high chairs, and diapers
• Providing consistent meals or meal services
• Coordinating infant care with trusted adults to provide parents with much-needed breaks
• Offering to do household tasks such as cleaning and laundry
• Helping with grocery shopping, picking up prescriptions, or running other essential errands
• Coordinating reliable transportation for the family as needed
• Directing the family to local resources such as food and clothing banks, parenting workshops, and mental health services
• Connecting them to parent groups and local or online support groups
• Offering to assist with paperwork associated with parental leave, healthcare, or government assistance programs
• Advocating for government policies that prioritize the well-being of young families

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As the African proverb goes, “It takes a village to raise a child.” Humans evolved from tight-knit hunter-gatherer communities who relied on one another. The nuclear family is a relatively new concept in terms of our evolution. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, infants were raised in close and connected groups, with many opportunities for relationships.

The health of our physiology depends on caring and consistent interactions with those around us. We can be that supportive system for those in our communities and help the next generation thrive.