Hug your baby — or else.
A new study shows that the amount of close and comforting contact infants get from their caregivers impacts children at the molecular level. And — no surprise — less isn’t more when it comes to such contact and good health.
A research team from the University of British Columbia and BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute looked at kids who had been distressed as babies and received less physical contact.
They found that these children had “a molecular profile in their cells that was underdeveloped for their age — pointing to the possibility that they were lagging biologically.”
Scientists focused on the youngsters’ “epigenetic age.” Simply put, epigenetics is the study of biological mechanisms that will switch genes on and off.
“In children, we think slower epigenetic aging might indicate an inability to thrive,” said Michael Kobor, a professor in the UBC Department of Medical Genetics. He and fellow researchers came to their conclusions after a two-part study involving 94 healthy children.
The kids’ parents kept a diary of their 5-week-olds’ behavior, including sleeping, crying, fussing and eating. Parents also recorded how long their caregiving involved bodily contact. At age 4 1/2, the kids’ DNA was tested by way of an oral swab.
Cellular analysis showed that the children who experienced higher distress and received relatively little contact had an epigenetic age that was lower than would be expected, given their actual age. Such a divide has been linked to poor health in several recent studies.
The research, published in the journal Development and Psychopathology, is the first to show that in humans the simple act of touching, early in life, has far-reaching and potentially lifelong consequences on genetic expression.
Researchers said that they plan to follow up to see how “biological immaturity” seen in subjects impacts both physical and mental health.
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