The care and attention of a mother towards a child is so important that it is capable of modifying the structure of the brain. Research scientifically endorses the benefits of maternal influence in the first years of life, a decisive stage for personality development, stating that maternal love improves the child's brain.
According to researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine in St. Louis (USA), children who have been cared for and supported by their mothers during their first years of life have a brain with a bigger hippocampus, an important key structure for learning, memory and stress response.
It is the first research that shows that the changes in this critical region of children's brain anatomy are linked to maternal care.
The support of the mother during the process of adaptation of the child in childhood causes changes in the hippocampus, increasing its size almost 10 percent in those children who had been cared for and loved, compared to children whose maternal relationship had not been so enriching.
The hippocampus is a very important structure of the brain. Its main function is the stress response management. Young children are not able to manage stress as we adults do (their brain is not yet "trained" for that). Without a doubt, the attitude of a caring mother who is aware of the child's needs is key to helping her adapt to stressful situations. This part of the brain is also key in the learning and memory processes.
It seems incredible that a scientific study has to come to highlight the importance of parenting. It is known that a welcoming environment, in which the child feels loved, safe and respected, is decisive for the child at all levels.
And now we also know that maternal love improves the child's brain. We have scientific evidence of the biological process that occurs in the brain when this happens: the powerful effect of maternal care on children's brains.
