James Prescott is a developmental neuropsychologist and cross-cultural psychologist. For fifteen years he conducted research on origins of violence for the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, NIH, and has given testimony on the origins of violence before the U.S. Congress; the Senate of Canada, and many other legislative and professional organizations.

Are policy makers giving attention to the emotional/social/sexual brain development of our children to the extent they have for cognitive brain development, such as reading readiness? What impact will the Welfare-Reform act of 1996 have on early childhood, especially the emotional, social development of young children? How does poverty impact the capacity of women to nurture and care for young children? Do our national health policies reflect the findings of over thirty-years of continuing research in brain and behavioral research, cognitive and emotional/social/sexual development?

We asked James W. Presscott, Ph.D., to review past and current scientific research and to offer his recommendations for policy changes that would assist Ms. Clinton explore and develop alternatives to the current model of early and sustained institutional care of our nation's children. Our emphasis is to encourage mothers and fathers to provide a nurturing HomeStart rather than stranger-care or day-care.

Transforming the American Family

The January 1998 edition of Scientific American draws attention to a number of recent studies reported at the October 1997 annual meetings of the Society of Neurosciences in New Orleans ("Don't Stress" by Kristin Leutyler). These studies support earlier findings that significant failure or impairment of affectional bonding in the mother-infant/child relationship results in both structural and functional damage to the brain.

The article describes how Dr. Michael Meaney of the Douglas Hospital Research Centre in Montreal; Dr. Mark Smith of the Du Pont Merck Research Labs; NIMH scientists; Dr. Mary Carlson of Harvard Medical School and other investigators have continued a long tradition of research on the effects of mother deprivation on infant brain-behavioral development. This research is the latest in over thirty years of neuropsychological studies on the mother-infant relationship, which have also involved infra-human primates.

Mary Carlson of Harvard Medical School observed behavioral problems in socially isolated chimpanzees and suspected that the autisticlike symptoms stemmed from a lack of tactile stimulation.... Compared with family-reared children, Romanian orphans showed retarded physical and mental growth and cortisols.

Robert M. Sapolsky of Stanford University reports: not only do chronically high GC (cortisol) levels kill off hippocampal neurons, they leave many others vulnerable to damage from epilepsy, hypoglycemia, cardiac arrest and proteins implicated in Alzheimer's disease and AIDS-related dementia....The worst thing for an animal is to remain isolated.

These and other brain disorders underlie the well documented depression, impulse dyscontrol, pathological violence and enhanced propensity for alcohol/drug abuse which follows from these separation induced brain disorders. Earlier studies have clearly established that failed bonding in the mother-infant/child relationship (the "isolation effect" or Somato-Sensory Affectional Deprivation S-SAD) is the single most important predictor of violence against offspring (child abuse) and later adolescent/adult societal violence.

Mounting evidence strongly indicates that traditional "institutionalized day care" which involves "stranger care" not only separates infants and very young children from their mothers and their nurturant love and affection, but also places them at "high risk" for abnormal brain-behavioral development. "Day Care" also impairs or prevents breast-feeding which is essential for normal immunological health and brain development of the child. Breast-feeding is intimately linked to the child-care reform agenda.

It is for good reason that international research has led the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF to recommend breast-feeding for "two years or beyond" (Innocenti Declaration, 1990) and for at least one full year by the American Academy of Pediatrics in their revised policy statement "Breast-feeding and the Use of Human Milk (Pediatrics, December 1997).

Yet, many newborns and infants are deprived of this best "Head Start" because our social-economic based child-care system discourages-if not prevents-women from being "nurturing mothers" and from breast-feeding their infants/children for the time periods recommended by the WHO, UNICEF and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Of special interest is the loss of the amino acid tryptophan- necessary for brain serotonin development-and other essential brain nutrients found only in breastmilk and absent in formula milk which pose special risks for abnormal brain development in formula-fed infants. Deficits in brain serotonin have been well established in depressive, impulse dyscontrol and violent behaviors.

The report that some 600,000 children and youth have been prescribed serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SRIs) to control depression is indicative of the magnitude of this problem. Prozac prescriptions alone have increased 46 percent from last year for those 13-18 years of age. It is highly unlikely that any of these children and youth have been breast-fed for "two years or beyond"- as recommended by WHO-UNICEF. Prevention is easy if we only had the wisdom and courage to act on the common sense and hard science before us.

Tragically, general and specific forms of nutritional deficiencies affect millions of American children, which can be prevented. Carol Bellamy, Executive Director, United Nations Children Fund, summarized some of the principle findings of UNICEF's 1977 "State of the World's Children" at a Paris press conference:

Children who survive the early consequences of nutritional deficiencies are often left crippled, chronically vulnerable to disease and intellectually impaired, unable to concentrate and learn". "These are not problems children grow out of. They are permanent...

UNICEF estimates that more than 13 million children in the United States-or one in four under age 12-don't get enough to eat (where) one-sixth of U.S. children are born into poverty, a higher proportion than in any other industrialized nation.... Discrimination and violence against women is a major cause of malnutrition. When women suffer, the nutritional well-being of their children suffers too. (Chicago Tribune, December 17, 1997).

The magnitude and tragedy of the American family and its children have yet to be effectively addressed by the U.S. Congress and the Clinton Administration where little or no programs of true PREVENTION have been established-comprehensive programs which must begin during pregnancy and carried through the formative periods of brain-behavioral development.