Mother’s love can boosts children’s mental health in later life: study

By Stephen Beech

A mother's love in early childhood can provide "life-long" physical and mental health benefits, according to new research.

Parental warmth and affection in early life protect their children as teenagers by shaping perceptions of social safety, say scientists.

The American study of British families found that children who experience more maternal warmth at three years of age have more positive perceptions of social safety at age 14.

That in turn predicts better physical and mental well-being at age 17, according to the findings published in JAMA Psychiatry.

Greater maternal warmth - defined as more praise, positive tone of voice and acts of affection - has previously been shown to predict better health throughout life.

But lead author of the new study Dr. Jenna Alley said the mechanisms underlying those associations had been unclear,

She said one possibility is that "interpersonal experiences" early in life affect whether children perceive the social world as safe or threatening, accepting or rejecting and supportive or dismissive.

The perceptions develop over time into mental frameworks - called "social safety schemas" - which help people interpret, organize, and make predictions about social situations and relationships.

Dr. Alley, a postdoctoral fellow in the Laboratory for Stress Assessment and Research at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), said: “Your social safety schema is the lens through which you view every social interaction you have.

“In a way, these schemas represent your core beliefs about the world, what you can expect from it, and how you fit in.”

The UCLA Health study is the first to track how maternal warmth in early childhood is related to perceptions of social safety in mid-adolescence, and how perceptions of social safety influence physical and mental health as people near adulthood.

Data from more than 8,500 British children assessed as part of the long-term Millennium Cohort Study were examined.

Independent evaluators visited the children at home at age three and assessed their mother’s warmth - praise, positive tone of voice, and harshness, physically restraining or grabbing the child.

At age 14, social safety schemas were measured with questions such as “Do I have family and friends who help me feel safe, secure and happy?”

The children then reported on their overall physical health, psychiatric problems and psychological distress at age 17.

The findings showed that children with mothers exhibiting more maternal warmth in early childhood perceived the world as being more socially safe at age 14, and had fewer physical health problems at age 17.

Children who perceived the world as more socially safe at age 14 in turn had fewer physical health problems, less psychological distress and fewer psychiatric problems at age 17.

The researchers found that children’s social safety schemas fully explained the association between maternal warmth and how psychologically distressed youth were at age 17.

In contrast, maternal harshness did not predict children’s perceptions of social safety at 14, or their physical or mental health at age 17.

Study senior author Dr. George Slavich, director of the Laboratory for Stress Assessment and Research at UCLA, said: “These are the first results we know of showing that maternal warmth can affect the health and wellbeing of kids years later by influencing how they think about the social world.

“That is a powerful message, because although early-life circumstances are not always easy to change, we can help youth view others and their future in a more positive light."

Dr. Alley said the fact that maternal warmth was found to more strongly affect teenagers' health than maternal harshness was important because it has implications for how to best intervene.

Based on the study findings, for example, she says enhancing a teenager’s sense of safety, by way of a public health campaign or intervention, may be more effective than focusing on reducing perceptions of harshness.

And it could potentially have a "positive" impact on health for years to come, even after poor maternal care has been experienced.

Dr. Alley said: “The findings tell the story of resilience.

"Namely, it's not just about stopping the negative things like poor care but about putting effort toward enhancing the positives like warmth and safety.

“It also important to know that people who have experienced poor care during childhood are not doomed; if we focus on their perceptions of the world, we can greatly improve their lives.”

Dr. Slavich added: “The message is clear.

“Perceiving the social world as a socially safe, inclusive place to be really matters for physical and mental health, and this knowledge can be used to develop better interventions and public health campaigns designed to enhance resilience across the lifespan.”

The research team stated that warmth from fathers was not analyzed because there was insufficient information from fathers in the Millennium Cohort Study.

But Dr. Alley says preliminary research suggests that the quality of care that fathers provide also predicts child outcomes, and should be a focus of future studies.