America, are we really going to cut services to our babies?
02/28/2011 -
Author: Ron Lally
Has no one paid attention to what neuroscientists have been telling us the last 20 years-about the critical importance of early nurturance to the development of the brain? Yes, Congress needs to dig our nation out of debt but do we really want to do it by short changing babies? How can anyone believe we will do no damage to our country if young American brains are put at risk?
Let's be clear about a few things. We now know, without a doubt, that even while a child is in the womb, inadequate nutrition, prolonged maternal stress, and environmental toxins can damage the brain. No one wants that. Yet the House Continuing Resolution for fiscal year 2011 currently proposed by the Republican leadership will cut $1 billion from Community Health Centers and $50 million from the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant funds that are currently used to remedy those conditions.
We also know, without a doubt, that during the first few years of life that the brain's architecture is being constructed in ways that influence future functioning. Neuroscientists tell us that babies desperately need deep connections with their principal caregivers so as to develop the emotional security and behavioral skills they will need to move confidently in the world. Yet, in a study of 173 countries, America stood with Liberia, Swaziland, and Papua New Guinea as the only countries not providing paid maternity leave. Throughout America we find parents placing their children in the care of others and going back to work sometimes before their baby is even 7 weeks old. Research tells us this practice is very risky because babies need time to bond with trusted family members who love them, and help them develop their first sense of self, how to learn, how to speak, and how to civilly relate to others. While other countries are making an investment in their future citizens by supporting their parents to be with them for the first six, 12, 15 months of life we do little to prevent the separation of mothers, fathers and their babies. And now our Congress is considering plans to cut $740 million from WIC, the supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children, and $3 billon for child care services. Research study after research study shows that the child care available to the children of the United States is too low in quality and too little in number and that early nutrition effects brain development.
If we make the cuts proposed we will tie the hands of our youngest citizens behind their backs before they even start to compete with the children of other countries. If we make these cuts of course we will continue to have an achievement gap. Of course we will not have the numbers of children graduating from college that we want. Of course we won't have young adults skilled in math and science. Please let's not in the name of deficit reduction, damage American children even before they get out of their diapers.
*Article reprinted from the CDPI Early Education in the News Bulletin, Feb. 14, 2011.
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