The amount
of close and comforting contact that young infants get doesn't just keep them
warm, snug, and loved.
A 2017 study
says it can actually affect babies at the molecular level, and the effects can
last for years.
Based on the
study, babies who get less physical contact and are more distressed at a young
age, end up with changes in molecular processes that affect gene expression.
The team
from the University of British Columbia in Canada emphasises that it's still
very early days for this research, and it's not clear exactly what's causing the
change.
But it could
give scientists some useful insights into how touching affects the epigenome -
the biochemical changes that influence gene expression in the body.
During the
study, parents of 94 babies were asked to keep diaries of their touching and
cuddling habits from five weeks after birth, as well as logging the behaviour
of the infants – sleeping, crying, and so on.
Four-and-a-half
years later, DNA swabs were taken of the kids to analyse a biochemical
modification called DNA methylation.
It's an
epigenetic mechanism in which some parts of the chromosome are tagged with
small carbon and hydrogen molecules, often changing how genes function and
affecting their expression.
The
researchers found DNA methylation differences between "high-contact"
children and "low-contact" children at five specific DNA sites, two
of which were within genes: one related to the immune system, and one to the
metabolic system.
DNA
methylation also acts as a marker for normal biological development and the
processes that go along with it, and it can be influenced by external,
environmental factors as well.
Then there
was the epigenetic age, the biological ageing of blood and tissue. This marker
was lower than expected in the kids who hadn't had much contact as babies, and
had experienced more distress in their early years, compared with their actual
age.
"In
children, we think slower epigenetic ageing could reflect less favourable
developmental progress," said one of the team, Michael Kobor.
In fact,
similar findings were spotted in a study from 2013 looking at how much care and
attention young rats were given from a very early age.
Gaps between
epigenetic age and chronological age have been linked to health problems in the
past, but again it's too soon to draw those kind of conclusions: the scientists
readily admit they don't yet know how this will affect the kids later in life.
We are also
talking about less than 100 babies in the study, but it does seem that close
contact and cuddles do somehow change the body at a genetic level.
Of course
it's well accepted that human touch is good for us and our development in all
kinds of ways, but this is the first study to look at how it might be changing
the epigenetics of human babies.
It will be
the job of further studies to work out why, and to investigate whether any
long-term changes in health might appear as a consequence.
"We
plan to follow up on whether the 'biological immaturity' we saw in these
children carries broad implications for their health, especially their
psychological development," said one of the researchers, Sarah Moore.
"If
further research confirms this initial finding, it will underscore the
importance of providing physical contact, especially for distressed
infants."
The research
was published in Development and Psychopathology.
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