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A vital and productive society with a prosperous and sustainable future is built on a foundation of healthy child development. Health in the earliest years—beginning with the future mother’s well-being before she becomes pregnant—lays the groundwork for a lifetime of vitality. When developing biological systems occur in an environment of positive early experiences, children have a greater chance to thrive and to grow up to be healthy adults. Sound health also provides a foundation for the construction of sturdy brain architecture and the achievement of a broad range of skills and learning capacities. There is an extensive, and rapidly expanding, amount of scientific evidence illustrating the extent to which early experiences affect the biology of the body, becoming embedded in the development of multiple organ systems. As a result, the consequences of adversity early in life can be serious and long-lasting, affecting the body’s ability to, for example, regulate metabolism, fight disease, and maintain a healthy heart—as well as a healthy brain. Reducing toxic stress in early childhood is therefore an important strategy for lifelong health promotion and disease prevention.

Thanks to advances in the science of early childhood development, the chain of causes and effects in health across the lifespan have become clear. Policies and programs in both the public and private sectors can either strengthen or weaken the three foundations necessary for healthy development: stable, responsive relationships; safe, supportive environments; and appropriate nutrition. These foundations, in turn, trigger adaptations or disruptions in the body that influence lifelong outcomes in health, learning, and behavior. Understanding how each link in the chain affects the others can provide a science-based, biodevelopmental framework for decisions about policies, systems, and practices that support the healthy development of all young children, their families, and the healthy, productive adults they will become.

Child & Family Mental Health

Emotional well-being is a critical part of the social and functional competence that is developed in the first years of life and affects a child’s later success in school and in human relationships. The Child Mental Health Network was launched by the Center in September 2008 to generate, integrate, communicate, and apply the science of children’s mental health to inform policy and practice, and to make scientific advances more transparent in order to inform public understanding. More >>

 

The Foundations of Lifelong Health Are Built In Early Childhood

foundations-of-health-thumb.jpgThis report, co-authored by the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child and the National Forum on Early Childhood Policy and Programs, offers a new framework for early childhood policy and practice related to physical and mental well-being. These findings suggest the need to augment adult-focused approaches to health promotion and disease prevention by addressing the early childhood origins of lifelong illness and disability.

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How Early Experiences Get Into the Body: A Biodevelopmental Framework

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This interactive feature, also available in a downloadable "flip chart" format, explains how early experiences are biologically embedded in the development of the brain and other organ systems and have lifelong impacts on learning, behavior, and both physical and mental health.

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MICHELLE ALBERT

In her clinical practice at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) in Boston, Center-affiliated faculty member Michelle Albert treats adult cardiovascular patients. In her research, Albert studies how to assess the risk of cardiovascular disease in different racial and ethnic groups and the role chronic psychological stress may play. So why is she interested in childhood? “Disease starts early in life, basically prenatally,” says Albert, the director of behavioral and neurocardiovascular cardiology at BWH and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “I think understanding the risk factors, the biological mechanisms, and their interplay with social mechanisms…is extremely important.” More >>