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Hope this is the correct article as it is dated February not June.



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ref: DAW


17/02/98 USA: STRESSED BABIES MAY BE PRONE TO TROUBLE LATER-EXPERTS.


By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
PHILADELPHIA, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Psychiatrists said on Tuesday there may be a
physical basis linking stressed-out babies to personality disorders in
adulthood.
Babies who are made to sleep alone or are not picked up and comforted enough
may
grow up susceptible to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and personality
problems, said Dr. Michael Commons of the Harvard Medical School, and
colleagues.
The idea that babies need physical contact is not new -- that is why they are
no
longer swaddled in tight blankets and left to cry for hours. But researchers
speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement
of Science said they were starting to find evidence of physical changes in the
brain caused by stress in infancy.
"Parents in most cultures have infants sleep with them," Commons told a news
conference. "As an infant, sleeping by yourself is very stressful. We can see
this because infants cry."
Scientists have also found levels of the stress hormone cortisol to be much
higher in crying babies. Commons suggested that constant stimulation by
cortisol
in infancy caused physical changes in the brain.
"It makes you more prone to the effects of stress, more prone to illness
including mental illness and makes it harder to recover from illness," Commons
said. "These are real changes and they don't go away."
He said his team was doing studies with Kenyans, people of Mayan descent and
residents of Boston.
In the West, children are encouraged to be self-sufficient and face danger
alone. "They don't have the emotional resources to seek comfort and consoling
and the experience becomes unspeakable," Commons said.
Other cultures teach infants to stay close and look to others for emotional
and
physical support, he said.
"The infants sleep touching the parents," he said. "They are carried around
touching the parent or some family member."
Commons cited theories that such constant support kept down levels of
cortisol,
and helped the cortical structures in the brain develop better.
He said illnesses such as PTSD and phobias, on the rise in industrialized
countries such as the United States, barely existed in more primitive
societies.
But Commons conceded he had no proof of his theory, although he planned more
tests such as PET scans, which can show blood flow in the brain and indicate
what structures in the brain are working.
But he said parents should think carefully about how they treat infants. "I
think infants should be rubbed and hugged and kissed," he said. Children in
day
care should not be put to sleep in separate cribs, he said. "They should sleep
touching each other."
Commons conceded the growing prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder
could
be because it had become fashionable to talk about.
"I think the cultural fad of PTSD is probably a slight, slight overreaction,"
he
said. "But I work in a mental hospital and clinical instances of PTSD and
phobia
are just way, way up. I think there's a strong organic basis."
(c) Reuters Limited 1998




REUTERS NEWS SERVICE


Reference : rpf_contact_form-1-20001113-0112-3841
Email     : [log in to unmask]

Name      : Barbara Latterner.
Country   : USA.
City      : Brewster.
Person    : IBCLC Lactation Consultant.
Category  : press_comment
Product sector or market : health

I have the following comment to make:

I am looking for info on an article that you published in June 1998 that was
abstracted in the Brown University Child and Adolescent Behavior Newsletter.
It was about a Harvard study on letting infants cry and later diagnosis of
PTSD, depression due to increased cortisol levels.  I would like to find the
original Harvard study.  Please email me if you have this info.  Thanks!

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