Today while bottle feeding an abandoned kitten, I was thinking about the poor kids involved in this fiasco. Has Ms. Nadya "I can do what I want" Suleman even considered the babies development, let alone that of her prior 6?

Dr. Bruce Perry, PHD wrote an excellent book entitled The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog, And Other Stories From A Child Psychiatrist’s Notebook. Several of the cases he covered come to mind when viewing the train wreck which is Nadya Suleman. The following is a brief description of what can be expected from infants raised without enough individual attention from a single primary caregiver.

Firstly, one must understand that the brain is an historical organ. It stores our personal narrative. Life experiences shape who we become by creating the brains template of memories which guide behavior. Sometimes this happens in ways we are conscious of, but most often this occurs in a process beyond our awareness.

Since the brain develops in early life, the way we are parented has a dramatic influence on brain development. Since we tend to care for our children in the same manner we were cared for ourselves at children, we greatly influence future generations.

More than any other species, our young are born vulnerable and dependent. Pregnancy and early childhood are tremendous energy drains on the mother and also on the larger family group. Due to the loud, constant demands of a newborn, human mothers instinctively tend to devote themselves to comforting, feeding and protecting their young.

In turn, during infant development, in ordinary circumstances, infants receive attentive, attuned and loving care. When cold, hungry thirsty, frightened or distressed in any way, the cries of the infant will bring the comforting mother who will meet the needs and dissolve the infant’s distress with loving attention. With this loving care 2 major neural networks will be stimulated simultaneously in the infants developing brain. The first is the complex set of sensory perceptions associated with human relational inter-actions: the mothers face, smile, touch, voice and scent. The second is stimulation of the neural networks mediating “pleasure”. This “reward system” can be activated by the relief of distress, quenching thirst, satisfying hunger, calming anxiety…All result in a sense of pleasure and comfort. When these 2 patterns of neural activity occur simultaneously, and with repetition, an association is made between them in the developing brain. Pleasure and human interaction become inextricably woven together, and is the important neurobiological “glue” that bonds and creates human relationships. Because of this, the most powerful reward for a child is the attention, approval and affection of a loved one. Consequently, the most powerful pain a child can experience is loss of attention, and loss of affection.

For the majority of infants, your mother or father will be present repeatedly to meet your needs. Time and time again that parent will come when you cry, and soothe you, when you are hungry they will feed you, when you are cold or scared they will comfort you. As the brain develops, the template is formed for future relationships. Attachment is the template for human – to – human bonds. IT IS PROFOUNDLY INFLUENCED WHEN YOU RECEIVE INCONSISTENT, DISRUPTED or NEGLETFUL CARE.

As the child’s brain grows, it grows in a use-dependent manner. Meaning that neural systems used become more dominant, and those not used grow less so. As the child grows, many systems of the brain require stimulation if they are to develop. Furthermore, this use-dependent development MUST occur at certain times, or the systems WILL NOT FUNCTION at their best. If this “sensitive period” is missed, some systems may never reach their full potential, and the deficit may be permanent. For example, if one kitten’s eye is kept closed during the first few weeks of life, then the kitten will be blind in that eye, even though the eye is completely normal. The visual circuitry of the brain requires normal experience of sight in order to wire itself. Lacking visual stimuli, the neurons in the closed eye fail to make the needed connections, so the opportunity for sight and depth perception is lost. Similarly if a child is not exposed to language during early life, they may never speak of understand speech normally.

Children who do not get constant physical affection and the chance to build loving bonds will not receive the patterned stimulation needed to form proper human to human interactions.
If just the basic needs are fulfilled, feeding, bathing, dressing, the consequences can be devastating. Babies need the individual attention to develop emotionally. A parent who does not hold the baby, or who feeds the little one propped up with a bottle as opposed to cuddled close to the bosom, one who does not spend significant time rocking baby, cooing and staring into its eyes, and playing with baby (silly but hugely important things) is depriving their baby the physical and emotional signals all mammals need to stimulate growth. Without these things, the child cannot grow. The child will stop gaining weight.

The term used to describe babies who fail to grow, lose weight due to emotional neglect is “Failure to Thrive”. This is a syndrome associated with infants and children raised without enough INDIVIDUALIZED attention and nurturing. This has been documented for centuries, most notably in orphanages or institutions where there is NOT ENOUGH ATTENTION TO GO AROUND. If not addressed early, IT CAN BE DEADLY. One study found that children raised without receiving enough individual attention have and extraordinarily high death rate and often develop a condition known as infant anorexia, due to failure to eat/keep down food. Children who do survive such emotional deprivation often have severe behavior problems, hoard food, are overly affectionate with strangers while having difficulty maintaining relationships with family, bizarre and horrible violent outbursts in which they completely lose control and last for hours, not to mention other serious social and academic problems.

Babies are born with core elements of the stress response already intact and centered in the lower, most primitive parts of their developing brains. When the infant gets signals from inside it body - or from external senses -that something is not right, these register as “distress”. This “distress” can be hunger, if calories are needed, thirst, if it is dehydrated, or anxiety, if it perceives an external threat. When the distress is relieved, the infant feels pleasure. Babies instinctively find being held, touched, rocked and soothed by the one that smells like “mother” pleasurable. Therefore an interaction with the mother, developed over the thousands of times she must pick up baby when it cries/needs attention, becomes the stress-modulator for baby. The baby must rely on mother not only ease hunger, but to soothe the ongoing anxiety that comes to baby due to not being able to care for itself. If the parent gives the needed individual attention, then baby will eventually learn to soothe and comfort itself, a skill needed later in life when facing ups and downs.

If a baby’s smiles are not responded to by “mommy” (the primary care-giver) if she is repeatedly left to cry, or if she is fed without tenderness, if she is not held enough, the baby experiences the agony of loss of security. The loss of stimulation will be devastating. The infant’s body will respond with a hormonal dysregulation that impedes normal growth, despite receiving more than adequate nutrition. The problem is similar to what is called “runt syndrome”. In litters of mice, rats, even puppies and kittens, the smallest, weakest animal often dies within a few weeks following birth. The mother does not pay the necessary individual attention to the smallest one, which limits its growth.

Infants found with failure to thrive syndrome have reduced levels of growth hormone, often due to neglect during a needed time of stimulation. Such children, like the scrawny runt in a litter of puppies, do not receive the physical nurturing their body needs to know that they are “wanted” and that it is safe to flourish and grow. For children who do not have failure to thrive, but are brought up in the same environment, the results can be equally as disturbing, They may experience the same severe behavior problems, hoard food, are overly affectionate with strangers while having difficulty maintaining relationships with family, bizarre and horrible violent outbursts in which they completely lose control and last for hours, not to mention other serious social and academic problems. Physical results can include brain regions being that are seriously deprived or having nor received enough stimulation to make up for emotional neglect, and fractured neurodevelopment. There may be cortical atrophy, large ventricles (which means that spinal fluid takes up space that is normally occupied by brain tissue), and lower brain structures that are massively under-developed.

Looks like Nadya’s kids have a whole lot to look forward to. Kind of hard for a primary caregiver to give the individualized attention needed to one baby when there are 13 other kids that need the same tlc.

Not to mention that Nadya’s irresponsible paranting has already left an IMPRINT/TEMPLATE on the 6 existing kids. So we can look forward to another generation of Sulemans/Solomons that think they are entitled to use welfare/us citizens as their personal wallets, because they are

“special”.

The only way these kids are going to stand a chance is to give the 8 to families that can parent them properly.