The First Five Years Matters: Quality of Early Relationships determines Lifelong Health

Quality of Early Relationships determines Lifelong Health
The first relationship—usually this is between the mother and her infant—has an enduring impact on all later stages of human development. This relationship which occurs has been described by Bowlby’s attachment theory, which at its core, is about how the mother helps the infant regulate emotion. The mother-infant attachment communications are essential because they directly affect the development of the brain.
Dr. Allan Schore, the clinical faculty of the Department of Psychiatry and Bio-behavioral Sciences, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, and at the UCLA Center for Culture, Brain, and Development, more specifically describes this relationship focusing on the development of the right brain, which develops earlier than the left brain. The right brain is involved in the regulation of emotion and arousal states, and in the nonverbal processing of social and emotional information. It is also involved in empathy and creativity. The infant’s brain development literally depends on this social interaction, on right-brain to right-brain communication with its mother. It is through these emotionally intimate interactions, that the actual organization of the infant’s right brain moves from simple to more complex.
Understanding this complex relational dance between the primary care giver (mother) and the application of the lesson learned, is the foundation for raising healthy children.