More than words

Nature or nurture? The age old argument is endless, no matter which way you look at it you will end up right where you started. Are human beings biologically determined or socially conditioned? Jess Stevenson investigates.

Academic theory is all very well, and can offer a million and one reasons why a person might be the way they are. Just take a look at Freud. But all this may be about to change. Knowledge of attachment theory has been silently sweeping the country.

The term ‘child attachment’ may vary from one parent support scheme to the next but the principle is the same. From health visitors who work with young families to those who work with anti-social teenagers, attachment theory is beginning to influence social policy and practical work with families. The importance of good parenting is being re-emphasized but it hasn’t yet reached a universal level of public awareness despite the efforts of experts. But why is it so important and where did it all start?

Theory

John Bowlby first developed the theory of child attachment in 1958 but it is only recently that it has undergone a radical transformation. Fifty years of research into children’s emotional wellbeing has been revitalized by scientific discoveries in neuroscience, developmental psychology, and biochemistry, which have revealed a biological explanation for the way baby’s brains develop, and through this, a deeper understanding of emotional life.

This understanding presents a whole new perspective on social behaviour and for many confirms what they always believed: that loving a baby well enables it to become an emotionally stable adult. While this may seem simplistic - the idea that early interactions between babies and their parents will affect their future emotional wellbeing means that early interventions focused on improving early relationships could have dramatic positive impact on society.

Evolution and the ability to adapt

In evolutionary terms for humans to stand upright on two legs, the pelvis had to be smaller and so baby’s heads [and therefore brains] had to be smaller at birth than other mammals. So whilst babies are born with the genetic blueprint for a complex life that can adapt to any environment, a babies brain does two thirds of it’s growing after it is born. George Hosking, CEO of the international charity WAVE points out: “At birth there are 100 billion neurons [brain cells] and 50 trillion synapses [connections]. By age three the number of synapses increases to 1,000 trillion.

“This is too large a number to be specified by genes alone and it is thought that the new synapses are formed by experience. [Infants] have an innate drive to learn and they actively seek out human faces within half an hour of birth.”

Steve Biddulph, author of Raising Babies explains why babies need the right stimulation: “A baby’s brain is not just mush it cannot grow as a potato grows, by simply swelling up. It is wired more densely and intricately than any computer yet invented and this wiring has to be programmed from experiences.

“This gives the human baby – and therefore our species – the maximum flexibility to grow to adapt to its environment. From the same beginnings, we can raise a child to be a hunter on the Arctic ice, or an intensive care nurse in a British hospital.”

A dependent baby

Unable to talk, babies are totally dependent on their mother. They arrive only with the basics - the ability to sense when they are hungry, full, cold, warm, cuddled or alone. They need to communicate with their parent – draw their parent into their world to get their needs met and survive.

Sue Gerhardt, author of Why Love Matters explains how a baby is still very much part of the mother’s body: “He depends on her milk to feed him, to regulate his heart rate and blood pressure, and to provide immune protection. His muscular activity is regulated by her touch, as is his growth hormone level. Her body keeps him warm and she disperses stress hormones for him by her touch and her feeding.”

Babies cannot calm themselves, they do not have the ability to regulate their own emotions. They rely on their parent to do this for them. “Just as we have to keep a baby warm – since it cannot regulate its own temperature – we also have to keep it comforted emotionally, as it cannot regulate its own stress,” says Biddulph.

Interaction with the baby or how well the parent is ‘tuned in’ to the child directly affects how the brain develops. Happiness is as essential to a baby as the air it breathes. Biddulph explains: “When a baby sees a smiling face, or is given a warm cuddle, its’ body produces more growth hormone, its brain comes alive, and grows connections more quickly.”

If a baby feels secure through the loving relationship it makes with its parents its brain will develop the right connections to enable it to regulate its own emotions then and later on in life – the foundations for what experts term their ‘emotional thermostat’ is set in early life. If a baby becomes accustomed to high levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, then their stress response can be set at a high level for life.

Brain development

It is the social part of the brain, the pre-frontal cortex [PFC] that enables a child to regulate emotion and relate to other people. Virtually non-existent before birth it grows in response to the love and affection a baby receives. But the growth of the PFC is not automatic and only builds connections through the experience and interaction it receives.

If there is no love and stimulation growth hormones aren’t released and vital areas of the brain will fail to develop properly. A stressed baby is likely to block its growth hormones rather than waste energy on growing.

The use it or lose it phenomenon

The connections in the brain that are used repeatedly become robust but those that are unused wither away and are ‘pruned’ off. The brain keeps what is useful and lets go of surplus connections.

“A happy brain is more densely wired, more full of impulses. More connections mean more thinking power, and more ability to live a happy life,” says Biddulph.

Romanian Orphans

MRI brain scans of Romanian orphans who experienced serious neglect have revealed how little or no interaction can affect brain development. Left in their cots all day devoid of affection or human interaction some children had black holes in their brains where whole areas had failed to grow.

“There is little hope of fully recovering these lost social abilities or of developing this part of the brain adequately,” points out Gerhardt.

Anna Mankelow, a project officer for children and young people services, recalls working in a Romanian orphanage: “On average there were about 15 babies in a room. All I can remember is all these babies just crawling around the floor.

“There was definitely lots of grabbing and trying to get attention, but the older ones were extremely despondent.”

Attachment

Brain development is inextricably linked with the attachments children have with their main caregivers.

A happy loved child will be able to explore the world from a secure and loving base. A secure attachment is the best way of enabling a child to become independent in its own time. A child who is not attached has less ability to relate to others and is more likely to develop mental health problems later on in life.

In her book, Gerhardt explains how early pathways created in the brain can affect the way adults respond to stress and how this can contribute to conditions such as anorexia, addiction, and anti-social behaviour.

According to Richard Bowlby, insecure attachment is found in approximately 40% of toddlers in the UK and US. Factors that contribute to insecure attachment may include, family breakdown, abusive or neglectful parents, alcohol abuse, parental depression and a lack of parenting skills.

Importance

If interventions to improve parenting are made available to those that need it, the positive impact on society could be dramatic. Through parents, health visitors, social workers and childcare professionals having the knowledge to improve early relationships with children, a poorly parented child does not have to become a bad parent.

A universal understanding of attachment may mean the amount of children with mental health problems would decrease, as would levels of child abuse, anti-social behaviour, depression, illness and addiction to drugs and alcohol.

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