Isolation in early childhood

The early childhood stressor I chose to focus on is neglect or isolation. My parents are involved in foster care. One child that came through our home had been left for long spans of time in his crib, other than when he was sleeping. He had experienced this for the first three years of his life. When the child was found and taken from the mother, he did not show interest in walking or even crawling, though he was old enough for both. He also had trouble making eye contact, had little to no language, and had to be introduced to solid foods. The child ended up surviving and is now doing quite well, minus some behavioral problems, but not every child that suffers through this is so lucky. It took a lot of love, patience, and modeling for this child to make it as far as he has.

In 1976 in the United Kingdom, Emperor Frederick II, “conducted an experiment in which babies were deliberately subjected to institution-like experiences, being raised by nurses and foster mothers who were not permitted to speak to them. The Emperor's purpose for such drastic action was to find out which language the children would instinctively speak. The unforeseen outcome of his experiment was that the children died” (Rogers, 1976).  Such experiments could not be done with today’s child protective laws, but incidents of isolation and neglect still occur in individual cases.

Roger does note one proposal for change that he knew happened in other parts of the world, “In France and else where it is possible for mothers to be paid a salary for the first two years of their children’s lives to enable them to stay at home with them” (Rogers, 1976). Rogers feels that this would give mothers not only the resources to take care of their children but also the support that many mothers desperately need.

References

Rogers, S. (May 1976). Isolation in early childhood. Paper presented to the Select committee on violence in the family, The house of Commons, United Kingdom. 14.

Breastfeeding

I chose to focus on a combination of breastfeeding and malnutrition, since they seem to go hand in hand in many places. One such place is in the Eastern Mediterranean Region. I chose this topic because being pregnant myself I am constantly asked if I plan to breastfeed and why. Research tells us that breastmilk is best; it gives babies all of mom’s antibodies, as well as helps to protect them from a variety of things such as diabetes, asthma, allergies, and obesity.

I visited the WHO website for the Eastern Mediterranean Region. One fact that hit home hard was as follows, “Around 50% of deaths in children under five in the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region are attributable to mild to moderate malnutrition” (WHO, 2012). WHO suggests infants being exclusively breastfed for at least the first six months, and complement other foods along with breastfeeding for up to two years.

 “Many countries in the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region report high rates (>60%) of early initiation of breastfeeding of infants and more than 60% of infants continue to be breastfed at one year. However, rates of exclusive breastfeeding seem to have declined, with only 40% or less of infants under six months in countries of the Region being exclusively breastfed” (WHO, 2012).

References

World Health Organization. (2012). Regional office for the eastern Mediterranean. Retrieved July 7, 2012 from http://www.emro.who.int/health-topics/infant-nutrition/.