Psychology

Exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life is proven to protect both mother and child health. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), between 2015 and 2021, 48% of mothers exclusively breastfed, meaning that their babies were not given any other food or liquids. However, this figure is based on data collected from surveys which report what a child was given in the previous 24 hours. A research team has found that this '24-hour recall' method overestimates exclusive breastfeeding by about six times compared to a 'since-birth recall' method.

Racial discrimination and bias are painful realities and increasingly recognized as detrimental to the health of adults and children. These stressful experiences also appear to be transmitted from mother to child during pregnancy, altering the strength of infants' brain circuits, according to a new study.

Children born between 32 and 38 weeks' gestation are more likely to have developmental disorders -- such as language delay, cognitive impairment, ADHD and Cerebral palsy -- compared with children born at full term, according to a major new study.

Medical researchers have uncovered a novel mechanism that leads to motor neuron degeneration in spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). This discovery offers a new target for treatment that overcomes important limitations of gene therapy and other current therapies for SMA.

In a new study of more than 50,000 Korean adolescents, those who used a smartphone for more than 4 hours per day had higher rates of adverse mental health and substance use.

Research has shown that children who experience adversity during their early years may undergo faster biological aging. Nonetheless, a recent study reveals that positive parenting interventions can potentially shield children from this consequence, helping slow the epigenetic aging process.

Phonetic information -- the smallest sound elements of speech -- may not be the basis of language learning in babies as previously thought. Babies don't begin to process phonetic information reliably until seven months old -- which researchers say is too late to form the foundation of language. Instead, babies learn from rhythmic information -- the changing emphasis of syllables in speech -- which unlike phonetic information, can be heard in the womb.

According to a new study B-12 vitamins increase the presence of the micronutrient in mothers' breast milk, which is especially helpful in countries where it can be difficult to eat what is needed for the body to produce B-12 naturally.

Communities can prosper by providing attentive education and social services to their youngest residents -- but the challenge is for leaders to work together, according to scientists.

Four in five primary caregivers of nine-month-old babies reported cuddling, talking and playing with their little one several times a day, in the first national long-term study of babies in over two decades.

The results show that while close supervision may be linked to increased anxiety when driving, it is also associated with a more cautious attitude behind the wheel.

Skin-to-skin contact between parent and infant during the first hours after a very premature birth helps develop the child's social skills. The study also shows that fathers may play a more important role than previous research has shown.

It is well known that people who have lived through traumatic events like sexual assault, domestic abuse, or violent combat can experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), including terrifying flashbacks, severe anxiety, and uncontrollable thoughts about the incident. But what exactly happens in the brains of PTSD patients as they recall these traumatic events? Are they remembered the same way as, say, the loss of a beloved pet -- or, for that matter, a relaxing walk on the beach?

Using artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze specialized brain MRI scans of adolescents with and without attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), researchers found significant differences in nine brain white matter tracts in individuals with ADHD.

The researchers studied decisions that more than 150 children ages 10 to 13 made while playing games that offered opportunities to risk a little and explore for potential gains.

Experiences of discrimination and acculturation are known to have a detrimental effect on a person's health. For pregnant women, these painful experiences can also affect the brain circuitry of their children, a new study finds. These effects, the researchers say, are separate from those caused by general stress and depression. The study was published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.

Whether infants at five months of age look mostly at faces or non-social objects such as cars or mobile phones is largely determined by genes. The findings suggest that there is a biological basis for how infants create their unique visual experiences and which things they learn most about.

New research has shown that extra practice in blending printed letter sounds can help struggling beginner readers (age 4-5) learn to read.

A new piece of research looks at the challenges faced by adopted people when they become parents. The study investigated the lived experiences of adopted people in the UK as they become parents. Until now research in this area has been very limited and hasn't tended to included the experiences of adopted men as fathers.

Babies as young as four months old can make sense of how their bodies interact with the space around them, according to new research.

A collaboration of researchers has published successful results from a Phase II clinical trial for the treatment of BRAF mutated low-grade paediatric gliomas.

Researchers have used an AI-based approach to uncover underlying patterns among the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age, termed social determinants of health (SDoH), and then linked each pattern to children's health outcomes. Compared with traditional approaches, the strategy, in principle, provides a more objective and comprehensive picture of potential social factors that affect child health, which in turn, can enable better targeted interventions.

There is a well-known relationship between good physical fitness at a young age and a lower risk of cardiovascular disease later in life. However, when researchers adjusted for familial factors by means of sibling analysis, they found a weaker association, although the link between high body mass index (BMI) and cardiovascular disease remained strong.

Time spent watching television or playing computer games has measurable and long-term effects on children's brain function, according to a review of 23 years of neuroimaging research, which while showing negative impacts also demonstrates some positive effects.

Children whose mothers are highly stressed, anxious or depressed during pregnancy may be at higher risk for mental health and behavior issues during their childhood and teen years, according to new research.

For the first time, teachers in a nationwide study have told researchers what strategies they think work best to deal with student violence against educators.Teachers rated suspending or expelling students as the least effective way of addressing violence, despite the popularity of 'zero tolerance' policies in many school districts.

Nearly one in five school-aged children and preteens now take melatonin for sleep, and some parents routinely give the hormone to preschoolers, according to new research.

A surprising thing happened when researchers began exploring whether early-life stress compounds the effects of a childhood head injury on health and behavior later in life: In an animal study, stress changed the activation level of many more genes in the brain than were changed by a bump to the head.

Despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warning this year will be potentially dangerous for respiratory illnesses, a third of Americans are not concerned about the threat, according to a new national survey.

Physical fitness since childhood is associated with cerebellar grey matter volume in adolescents. Those who were stronger, faster and more agile, in other words, had better neuromuscular fitness since childhood, had larger Crus I grey matter volume in adolescence.