Future happiness depends on child’s first three years

Your baby’s future chance of health, happiness and creativity is largely shaped by his or her experiences in the first three years of life.

Catherine Maguire, president of the Irish Association for Infant Mental Health (IAIMH), will tell a conference today a baby’s first relationship — usually with its mother — lays the foundation for future relationships.

If that relationship is positive, nurturing and enriching, then it will support the baby’s development of empathy and its capacity to form emotional attachments, Ms Maguire said.

Conversely, traumatic experiences in the early years — such as domestic violence — can have a negative impact on the baby’s future mental health.

The Effects of Trauma in the Early Years — the name of an IAIMH-hosted conference taking place in Dublin this weekend — will feature contributions from international experts in the area of infant mental health and will highlight evidence of the long-term impact of domestic violence and other kinds of abuse in the home on the developing baby. It will include speakers with expertise in the clinical care of infant mental health as well as members of the judiciary with experience of the family law courts.

Ms Maguire said they were hoping that by bringing different stakeholders together, that the gap that exists between what is know to be most beneficial for a child’s development, and what is done in practice, would be reduced.

The aim was to try and help the judiciary understand the effects of trauma in the early years, so as to help guide in their decision making, effectively making the baby’s voice heard in court.

Ms Maguire, a clinical psychologist, said there was now compelling scientific evidence of what was needed to allow a baby’s brain reach its full potential.

“These conditions include the presence of stimulating early life experiences, and a warm and nurturing [social] environment which is predictable and consistent.”

She said in these conditions, a baby would “develop capabilities that will increase the child’s chance for health, happiness, productivity, and creativity”.

Ms Maguire said when a baby’s experience was positive, it would provide the opportunity for the infant to learn to control and balance feelings, “especially those feelings that can be destructive”, such as aggression.

She said one of the most concerning early childhood psychological referral problems for somebody like her working with young children “is the growing prevalence of children who are unable to manage to calm or self-soothe their emotions”.

“If there is neglect, trauma and abuse there will be serious long-term consequences that will impact on early brain development and subsequent physical, emotional and social growth.”

The keynote address will be given by Dr Patricia Van Horn, clinical professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco and a director of the UCSF child trauma research programme. Also addressing the conference will be retired judge Donna Hitchens.