When getting ready to bring your little one into the world and raising them once they’re here, you’ll likely continually hear how important the nervous system is to their development. Let’s go over what the nervous system does, and why’s it’s so integral to your baby’s well-being:

The Nervous System Maintains Physiologic Functions

Firstly, the nervous system is essential for maintaining physiologic functions including cardiovascular and respiratory homeostasis. It’s also intricately connected to the higher brain system involved in the emotional and physical aspects of life that make us uniquely human. It plays a role in nearly every aspect of our health, including basic things like breathing, to more complicated things like the ability to make memories and  regulate emotional state. In other words, the nervous system is absolutely critical to who we are as people, and ensuring that your little one is developing in a healthy manner is incredibly important.

Emotional Experiences Shape the Way Babies Think

Science also tells us that early emotional experience can quite literally shape the way our little ones think– but how exactly does that work? Essentially, the subcortical part of the brain is responsible for creating emotional memories, while the medial prefrontal cortex part of the brain is involved in managing behaviors, as well as in planning and decision making. These two areas are connected and constantly communicating with one another, and extremely vulnerable to environmental influences– particularly in the early building stages, when your child is very young. Neuroscience actually suggests how these early life experiences can literally shape the ways in which children think.

This raises incredibly important questions for us as parents - how do our actions impact our little one’s nervous system, and how can we help promote healthy nervous system growth? Because we are the key source of creating these first experiences, it’s important to create a nurturing environment.

Parents Can Influence their Baby’s Nervous System

How can we do this? Firstly, engagement in healthy and positive situations is key here. You’re going to want to protect them from any loud, negative, and damaging noises, which can play a negative role in their development. You’ll want to try to create a gentle and supportive experience for them, as much as you can. In this environment, everything from the sound of your voice, the volume of your voice, and more plays a huge role. If we react well to something, our little ones will often do the same. If we respond in a calm way, our little ones will likely follow that lead. In this sense, we should view ourselves as an extension of their children’s developing brain.

Although very few people know this, the development of a baby’s nervous system begins long before they’re even brought into the world - in fact, it actually begins in utero. In just the fifth week of conception, a baby’s synapses begins forming in the fetus’s spinal cord, which then leads to the eventual development. In other words, the eggs we carry also carry emotional health. Because we know that a baby’s nervous system begins while they’re still in utero, we know that they’re nervous system is intrinsically linked to the birth parent– in other words, the development of their nervous system is based on ours. Thus, when it eventually comes to their own self soothing and self regulation, it’s imperative that we’ve provided them with the healthy tools to do so.

Looking for other ways of promoting healthy growth? It’s always helpful to expose our children to new and exciting environments, sights, and sounds - they’re learning so much from the moment they’re born! While we aren’t always perfect, and that shouldn’t be the goal, we should be trying to bestow kindness and gentleness in everything we do for our children, especially in their early months and years of life.