|
 Strong social ties to friends and family have long been linked to
better behavioral and physical health outcomes for adults. And
plenty of previous research also indicates that infants' and
toddlers' bonds with caregivers can have a lasting impact on
children's emotional, intellectual and social development.
But less is known about how the caregivers' own social connections
might influence early childhood cognitive development.
For the current study, researchers examined data on 1,082
mother-child pairs. They questioned women about their family
structure, friendships and relationships in their communities and
also looked at test results from cognitive assessments done when
kids were 2 years old.
Overall, mothers had an average of 3.5 friends in their social
support networks. When they had more, their kids had higher
cognitive test scores than when they had fewer.
"Outside the family context, mothers with larger social networks may
be able to draw on resources from those networks that alleviate some
of the burdens associated with parenting," said study co-author Kaja
LeWinn, a psychiatry researcher at the University of California San
Francisco.
"This may include emotional support, tangible support in the form of
babysitting or help with errands, and the transfer of knowledge
around high-quality day care or other childhood programs," LeWinn
said by email. "These resources may reduce parenting stress and
improve maternal mental health, both of which are positively
associated with child cognitive development."
About 75 percent of the mothers in the study had fewer than six
people in their family network, including all adults and children
living in their homes. Mothers with larger families had kids with
lower cognitive test scores than women with smaller families, the
study found.
Almost 60 percent of the mothers lived with the fathers of their
children and knew lots of people in their neighborhoods. These two
factors didn't appear to influence children's test scores after
researchers also accounted for poverty levels.
[to top of second column] |
All of the families in the study lived in the area around Memphis,
Tennessee, and it is possible that results might be different
elsewhere.
The study wasn't a controlled experiment designed to prove whether
or how mothers' social support networks might directly affect
children's cognitive development.
The researchers accounted for some factors that might influence
child cognitive development, including mother's age and IQ, father's
education level and the child's birth weight. But they did not have
data to assess other personal differences, such as history of
depression, between mothers with large networks of friends and those
with fewer.
Another limitation is that researchers lacked data on the quality of
relationships mothers had with the different people they interacted
with regularly.
The study also didn't examine mothers' coping mechanisms for
juggling life with a new baby, and it's possible that the effect of
various social relationships might be explained by how these people
help women manage stress, said Dr. Mary Lauren Neel, a researcher at
the Ohio State University and Nationwide Children's Hospital in
Columbus.
Still, the results offer fresh evidence that mothers with friends
they can count on and more social support may have an easier time
managing parenthood, Neel, who wasn't involved in the study, said by
email.
"What's exciting about this study is that it suggests that a child's
development could potentially be changed by enhancing a mother's
social networks of connection," Neel said. "You might not be able to
change where you live or how much money you make, but you might be
able to expand your social network."
SOURCE: https://bit.ly/2G4uJJW JAMA Network Open, online January 11,
2019.
[© 2019 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2019 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |
