Giving Every Baby a Strong Start

Dr. Lisa Berlin on Infants’ Earliest Relationships and Child Health Outcomes  

What if one of the most powerful tools for a baby’s lifelong health wasn’t a treatment or a test, but a caregiver’s touch? 

That’s the focus of the work Lisa Berlin, PhD, MS, is doing at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. The Alison L. Richman Professor of Children and Families at the University of Maryland School of Social Work and expert in early child-caregiver attachment, Berlin is studying how a brief, home-based parenting program can make a measurable difference in children’s health and development. Her research is supported by the National Institutes of Health. 

Berlin’s study centers on the Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-Up (ABC) program, in which trained parent coaches guide caregivers through nurturing, science-backed interactions with their babies. In 10 sessions, the program aims to strengthen early attachment relationships — building a foundation for emotional, cognitive, and even physical well-being. 

“Babies develop 1 million new neural connections per second. Those neural connections develop the growing brain architecture,” Berlin said. “Brain architecture guides all aspects of human behavior—  how we relate to each other, socially, emotionally, how we are able to pay attention in school and elsewhere — and it guides our developing immune systems, so our long-term physical health.” 

In a video Q&A, Berlin shares how her team is studying the ABC program’s impact on families, including improvements in sleep, weight regulation, and immune health. Read on for a preview of the conversation or watch as she explains why the program could be a pivotal tool in advancing early childhood care. 

Questions

Can you tell us about the ABC program and how it supports healthy parent-child attachment?

The Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-Up, or ABC, program, is a parenting program developed at the University of Delaware by Mary Dozier, so just up the road from us. It involves a trained parent coach going to the home of a baby and their principal caregivers, though everyone involved in caring for the child can be involved. Ten home-based sessions focus on supportive parenting behaviors that we know based on research — child development research — support the developing attachment, the relationship of the baby to their caregiver. That relationship, in turn, is what helps guide all the other aspects of growth and development.

What are some examples of the type of supportive behavior parents are learning in the program?

The ABC program really focuses on three types of supportive parenting behavior. That means — pick up the crying baby, comfort them. You can’t spoil a baby, especially before the age of 12 or 18 months. In fact, we know from many decades of attachment research that the more babies are picked up and comforted when they are distressed, the more confident and less behaviorally dysregulated, or what someone might call “spoiled” or “misbehaved,” they become.

Why is early parenting support a smart long-term investment?

Pay now or pay more later. We’re following the principle of prevention. Or, as Frederick Douglass famously said, it is easier to build strong children than to fix broken men. We are trying to build strong children.