The early years of life are crucial in a child's development. A child who receives affection and positive feedback from adults, good nutrition and has safe surroundings is less likely to face the challenges of poor health, poverty and psychological problems as an adult. Parents play a critical role and are responsible for the environment in which children grow up.
Facts
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), each year over 200 million children under the age of 5 fail to reach their full cognitive and social potential. From birth to age 5 is the most important phase for overall development throughout a lifespan. The brain and biological development during early childhood is directly influenced by environment. A child's early experiences form the basics of health, education and earning ability for a lifetime. Fortunately, there are low cost and effective ways for families and caregivers to ensure healthy child development in the early years.
Barriers
Family patterns of stress increase relative to the needs of premature or low birth weight infants or children with established disabilities such as cerebral palsy, autism, fetal alcohol syndrome, language disorders or hearing or vision impairments. Exposure to heavy metals, addiction, violence and maternal depression can also cause severe setbacks in a child's development.
Strategies
According to Dr. Richard Jolly of the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex in Brighton, while some problems are difficult to remedy and researchers lack evidence on which to base recommendations, fairly low cost and effective strategies are able to correct basic deficiencies. Interventions aimed at disadvantaged children should be incorporated into existing services, such as linking preschool education to health and nutrition. Programs that raise parent, family and caregiver awareness improve the social ecology in which a child lives.
Interventions
Several public education campaigns are aimed at eliminating risk factors that impact the healthy development of young children. Such programs ensure removal of lead and asbestos from the environment, fund public health programs to help parents stop smoking, raise awareness of shaken baby syndrome and prevent sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), by putting babies on their backs to sleep. National nutrition programs for low income pregnant women and young children are focused on correcting dietary iron deficiency. Prenatal care incentives are aimed at reducing preterm labor and birth and on the early identification and treatment of post partum depression.
The Role of Healthcare Providers
WHO asserts that the health care system plays an important role in healthy child development during early years, as they may be the family's only contact with and source of referral to other services. Information and guidance about infant and child milestones of development, the need for appropriate stimulation, healthy approaches to solving sleep, feeding and discipline problems, and child safety may be incorporated into the primary health care setting.
References
- WHO: Early Childhood Development
- "Blackwell Handbood of Early Childhood Development", Kathleen McCarney, Deborah Phillips, 2006
- "The Lancet", Early Childhood Development, Jolly R, Jan 6, 2007, Vol 369
