It’s now time to get a little science-y and this one may not be the tiny tidbit you’re used to consuming in one minute, but I promise you, it is an important topic to understand.

Try to dig back in your memory, way back for some of us, to early science classes when you learned about THE BRAIN! Now what about hormones? Perhaps that was health class – no, not sex hormones! What about STRESS HORMONES? Was that even part of the curriculum in high school health class? Did they even teach us how the BRAIN and BODY are connected? I am sure there was some talk of that but let’s take a different look, through our “grown up” eyes, in a way that will not only help you better understand your Littles, but maybe – just maybe, yourself…

We touched on Stress Science in the previous Tidbit but it is worth taking a closer look. The body’s response to stress is a normal, adaptive coping response that has developed over millions of years. Our ancestors experienced quick bursts of stress that were easily resolved and then had long periods of recovery. In modern times, we too often find ourselves exposed to chronic, mild to moderate levels of stress with no breaks and very little time for recovery. Our amygdala is part of the brain’s Limbic System which is our Emotional and “Reactive Brain”. The amygdala is very powerful; it is active right after birth and is responsible for processing emotions and has the power to take over the body and thoughts. Because of the amygdala’s location in the brain, it is connected to other important regions of the brain and has an activating influence on the HPA axis.

The HPA Axis (hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenocortical) plays a role in balancing hormones in the body and affects the stress response. When a threat is perceived, the HPA axis kicks in leading to the production of stress hormones, activating the nervous system (aka sympathetic nervous system), and impacting certain bodily functions such as increasing heart rate to prepare the body to protect itself from the threat. This is a great feature and really helped our ancestors when a hungry, wild beast was approaching them. The problem is, we don’t encounter too many of those wild beasts nowadays, but our body cannot differentiate between a negative review at work and a wild beast approaching. Stress hormones are not meant to continuously release in our bodies; when this happens, we can face varied health problems such as a suppressed immune system, inflammation, memory and attention problems, chronic pain, or high blood pressure along with mood related challenges.

With all that science out of the way, we come right back to the fact that early experiences matter. Trauma at any point in life can pose a challenge; however, the impact of trauma during the last trimester of pregnancy and the first 2 years of life can lead to neurological deficits that are very hard to undo. Prolonged stressors on a pregnant mother or infant will lead to a constant production of stress hormones and directly impact the development of the brain including the areas responsible for executive functioning, reflectivity, memory, and creativity.

Learning about Stress Science helps lay the foundation for understanding how and why prolonged stress can have such negative implications on the physical and emotional well-being of a person. Next tidbit, we will look at the developmental context of trauma and what it means for tiny bodies and tiny brains to carry the experience of prolonged stress and how caregivers can help.