A mother's affection in early life can help babies cope with stress better when they get older, a study has revealed.
Experts from North Carolina, Massachusetts and Rhode Island in the US, who assessed interactions between mothers and their offspring when the babies were eight months old, said that nurturing and warmth during childhood has "long-lasting positive effects on mental health well into adulthood."
The psychologists ranked levels of affection from negative or occasionally negative (low), warm (normal) to caressing or extravagant (high), based on the mothers' response to the child's performance in several developmental tests.
The findings, which were published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, showed that overall, one in 10 mother-child interactions showed low levels of maternal affection, 85% showed normal levels and 6% showed very high levels.
The experts studied symptoms like stress, hostility and anger, sensitivity and anxiety exhibited by the mothers and the levels of distress in the babies due to the symptoms.
