When your toddler misses a developmental milestone, like taking her first steps by age two, it’s natural to fret. After all, in very rare cases, such delays may be a sign of an underlying condition.
But a recent study suggests that some delays may have a more surprising explanation. Children are more likely to miss developmental milestones by age two if their parents suffered traumatic events during their own childhood, according to researchers from the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Ohio.
For each extra ACE experienced by a toddler’s mother, there was an 18% increase in the child’s risk of a missed milestone. For fathers, there was a similar trend. But the good news is that you can work with your provider to reduce or eliminate that risk. Here is what the researchers recommend:
Realize you are not to blame. “If a parent has a high ACE score, it’s important that they know that it’s not their fault — and that healing is possible for them and beneficial for their child,” said study co-author Emily Eismann, MS.
Take care of yourself. If you’re healthy and feeling good, you can better respond to your child in a calm, nurturing way. Eismann recommends getting enough sleep and exercise, eating nutritious food, building a good support network of family and friends, and doing mindfulness techniques like deep breathing when you’re stressed.
To read full document written by co-author Emily Eismann, MS click HERE
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