3-041 - Parenting Guidelines: Do Some Evidenced-Based Practices Compromise Baby Flourishing? Examining Research, Policy, and Practice

Session Type: Conversation Roundtable

Integrative Statement

Children’s biopsychosocial wellbeing in the USA has been declining (OECD, 2009; UNICEF, 2007). The American Academy of Childhood and Adolescent Psychiatry (2010) is now describing a “crisis” in children’s mental health: one in five children has a diagnosable psychiatric disorder, and one in ten suffers from a mental illness severe enough to impair everyday life. Although there are limitations to knowing how well children are truly faring, supports for children have diminished over the past 50 years (Heckman, 2008). One source for the decline in wellbeing may be early toxic stress (Shonkoff et al., 2012) and this may be a consequence of cultural beliefs that collide with what babies evolved to need.

Every animal has a developmental niche or system for its young, part of an extra-genetic inheritance, that corresponds to the needs and maturational pace of offspring (Gottlieb, 1991; Oyama, Griffiths & Gray, 2001). Intensive caregiving emerged through evolution over 30 million years ago as a developmental niche for young social mammals (Konner, 2010). Small-band hunter-gatherers, presumably representative of 99% of human genus social history, demonstrate a “hunter-gatherer childhood model” of childrearing (Konner, 2005) that includes extensive breastfeeding, nearly constant touch in early life, free play, soothing perinatal experiences, multiple adult caregivers and positive social support for the mother-child dyad, (also called “evolved developmental niche” or EDN; Narvaez et al., 2013). Some childrearing cultures diverge from EDN and there are many who advocate against EDN-consistent practices. The panelists discuss baby wellbeing, childrearing cultures and related issues.

Sub Unit

• Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Moderator

• Meredith Small, Cornell University

Panelists

• James McKenna, University of Notre Dame

• Wendy Middlemiss, University of North Texas

• Darcia Narvaez, Univ of Notre Dame

• Joshua Sparrow, Children's Hospital Boston