How Nurture Shapes Your Baby’s Brain

Hello! My name is Angela, thank you for reading today. I am a Certified Infant Massage Instructor, and Nurture Neuroscience Practitioner in training, based in Durham. My passion is supporting new parents and babies from birth to 3 years old. I believe that when parents are nurtured, they can nurture their babies with greater ease, confidence, and joy.

I would like to share a little bit about how your baby’s brain grows and develops and how nurture plays an important role in their future mental health.

I have recently trained with Neuroscientists Greer Kishenbaum and Rocio Zunini to become a Nurture Neuroscience practitioner. This amazing training is based on Greer’s book ‘The Nurture Revolution’, which is all about how mental health is built in infancy.

Mental health is largely determined by the development of complex emotional and cognitive brain circuits in early life, from conception to about age three. These circuits, which include critical brain areas like the amygdala, hypothalamus, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex, form the foundation for all brain functions, including mood regulation, anxiety, addiction, and overall resilience. Nurturing, through responsive relationships, builds these brain circuits to be resilient and healthy, thereby preventing mental unwellness.

It’s no secret that our society is facing a mental health crisis. With all ages affected, including children. Something HAS to change! We are getting better at treating mental health, but wouldn’t it be great if we could start doing something towards preventing problems in the first place?

Nurturing relationships and environments in early life offer a profound opportunity to improve mental health for future generations, fostering more empathy, connection, and peace.

Of all the mammals, humans are born with the least developed brain and nervous system, with only 25% of the volume of an adult brain. During the first 3 years, this increases to 80%, but it is not fully developed until the mid-twenties. Those first three years are critical. The growth is so fast that the latest estimate is that more than 1 million new neural connections form every second in the infant brain.

This period of massive neuroplasticity means that infants are very sensitive to early experience, especially experience in relationships.

Let’s look at what’s going on in the brain in those first 3 years.

Brain development starts with its most basic functions and gets more and more complex.

A healthy baby is born able to breathe, heart beating, able to digest milk. Able to sleep, cry, blink, suck and smell. These are the basic functions of our brain stem, highly developed to enable us to survive and form relationships. In fact, this part of the brain NEEDS ‘relationship’ to survive! We’ll call this the SURVIVAL BRAIN.

The next part of the brain to develop is the limbic system. This is the part of the brain that regulates our mood, emotions and how we respond to stress. This part develops most intensely from birth to around 3 years of age and is influenced by the care and interactions received from our caregivers. This part of the brain is the most influential when it comes to future mental health. We’ll call this the EMOTIONAL BRAIN.

The last part of the brain to develop is the area responsible for problem solving, learning, planning, memory, impulse control and emotional regulation. This happens in the prefrontal cortex, which is extremely immature at birth, but develops across infancy and in adolescence up to and beyond the age of 25 years. We’ll call this area the THINKING BRAIN.

Nurture is a strong preventative medicine.

‘At the heart of all nurture is the intention to be present, attuned, and close. To be a source of calm. To say, with your presence, “I’m here. I see you. You are important to me. You’re safe.” In a low-nurture culture that erroneously tells us to separate, limit presence, teach independence, to let them cry it out, not to spoil, to make them “self-soothe,” your gentle presence is indeed a radical act.’
The Nurture Revolution, Greer Kirshenbaum, PhD

What is nurture?
Nurture is made up of three key elements:
Parental sensitivity – a caregiver’s ability to accurately perceive, interpret, and respond appropriately to an infant’s signals in a prompt and consistent manner.
Attunement – when there is a synchronicity of affect states which generates a shared affective resonance that amplifies the experience. During attunement, the baby feels felt, known, and accepted.
Co-regulation – involves the coordination of biological and behavioural systems between parent and child that support the development of the child’s own regulatory systems.

Nurture plays a critical role in shaping the efficiency and resilience of the stress system that the child will rely on throughout life.

Regular nurturing influences key brain structures (amygdala, hypothalamus, hippocampus, prefrontal cortex), helping babies develop an adaptive response to stress – an efficient “alarm” system and a strong “brake” for stress.

The hormones produced during nurturing activities bathe the brain, promoting resilience and adaptive growth of the stress system.

During the first three years, infants are not able to do this on their own. Their thinking brain is not mature enough to regulate their mood, emotions and stress responses, so they must borrow our mature brains to help them through. When we provide nurturing care and a feeling of being seen, important and safe by our responses, we give the gift of oxytocin to our baby’s brain and stress levels fall, allowing for healthy brain function and development.

In my new weekly class parents have an opportunity to come together at a Nurture Neuroscience Circle.

We are not meant to do this on our own. Nurturing is hard work, particularly hard for those who have come from a low-nurture background themselves. Parents need nurturing too!

Imagine having a space where, each week, you could come as you are, share openly, and receive support and a sense of community and belonging to help you navigate this journey with confidence.

That’s what the Nurture Neuroscience Circle is here for. Together, we focus on ways to keep your reservoir full, nurturing your own changing parental brain (more on this in my next blog), while supporting your baby’s development. You don’t have to do this alone.

The Circle is based on the bestselling book, ‘The Nurture Revolution’ by Dr. Greer Kirshenbaum.

It is a series of mummy and me gatherings run by me. In a series of 12, 90-minute gatherings, we cover the key topics you need to know to grow lifelong health for your babies and yourselves.

– An expert to guide you and answer all of your questions about your baby and yourself.

– A new topic and a new parenting practice each session.

– Peer support from the other mothers in your group

What happens in a class?

– A nourishing practice for you

– A practice to connect you with your baby

– An opportunity to learn a new health-promoting topic each week

– An opportunity to share your experience, ask questions, and receive support

Doesn’t this sound wonderful?

You will find more information about this new class and my Baby Massage courses on my website and social media, Facebook  or Instagram.