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The emotional bond between mother and child plays a powerful role in emotional health and well-being as children grow into adults, but can it have an effect on whether they develop heart problems?
An intriguing new study by a team of researchers at the University of Minnesota suggests that it can. The study, which was recently published in the journal Health Psychology, uses data taken from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescents to Adult Health (also known as Add Health) to determine the impact of a strong maternal bond on whether or not participants develop cardiovascular problems later in life.
Add Health is a longitudinal study which follows thousands of participants beginning in early adolescence and continuing through to middle adulthood. Along with data on emotional and physical well-being, the research also looks at factors such as family relationships, romantic relationships, and ties to the community. Conducted in a series of "waves" starting with the 1994-1995 school year and continuing through to the latest wave in 2016 to 2018, the Add Health research project has already led to hundreds of research articles on a wide range of different topics relating to how emotional and physical health changes across the lifespan.
In this latest study, lead researcher Jenalee Doom of the University of Minnesota's Institute of Child Development and her co-researchers used Add Health data to assess how maternal warmth during adolescence affected later health. They focused on cardiovascular disease (CVD) which is now the leading cause of death for men and women. Not only does it account for over two thousand deaths a day in the United States alone, but 40.5 percent of all Americans are expected to have some form of CVD by 2030. This makes identifying those factors that can increase or decrease risk of CVD more critical than ever.
But why would maternal warmth during childhood help protect against heart disease later in life? Research studies have already found a range of biomarkers associated with CVD that appear to be influenced by a strong maternal bond in childhood. These include blood pressure, heart rate, cortisol levels, cholesterol, glucose, and insulin levels.
Adults who experienced secure attachments to their mothers as infants were also less likely to experience inflammation-linked conditions such as hypertension, stroke, diabetes, and heart disease than their counterparts who were insecurely attached as infants. A 35-year follow-up study by Gary Schwartz and Linda Russek found that 91 percent of men without a warm relationship with their mother during early adulthood developed chronic disease (heart disease, hypertension, alcoholism) later in life. For those men who did have a warm relationship, only 45 percent suffered from chronic illness decades later.
Other factors such as socioeconomic status (SES), gender, and family genetics have already been found to play a powerful role in later health. However, good maternal support seems especially important in protecting individuals who might otherwise be at high risk for disease. This appears to be especially true for those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Since growing up disadvantaged means not having the financial and personal resources that can ensure good health, strong parenting becomes even more important in protecting against disease. It's hardly surprising that the greatest health risk is found in adults who had a childhood history of abuse and neglect.
To examine how a good mother-child bond during adolescence can protect against CVD risk even decades later, Jenalee Doom and his fellow researchers studied over 11,000 Add Health participants who met their research standards. These standards included having a maternal figure in the home during adolescence (whether a mother or a mother-substitute), having the maternal figure reporting on the quality of their relationship during adolescence, and taking part in the later four waves of the study. The mean age of participants at the time when they were first assessed was 15.3 and 28.7 during the fourth wave when CVD risk was examined.
Measuring maternal support involved asking adolescents at baseline about the perceived quality of their relationship with their mother. This meant asking how close they felt to their mothers and how their mothers felt about them. Mothers were also given questionnaires asking about the quality of their relationship with their children. This included items asking about how much they trusted their adolescents and how satisfied they were with their relationship. Along with questions about maternal support, adolescents also answered questions about their general health, socioeconomic status, level of poverty in their neighbourhood, parental level of education, and overall demographic variables.
For participants in Wave Four (middle adulthood), risk of later CVD was measured using the Framingham Risk Score. This score estimates likelihood of developing cardiovascular problems over the next thirty years by weighing a combination of factors including age, gender, cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and lifestyle factors such as smoking. Other factors such as body weight, medical history, alcohol consumption, financial problems, and general lifestyle decisions were also included in the study.
As expected, results showed that a strong maternal bond during adolescence was linked to lower risk of CVD in later life. This relationship remained strong regardless of whether participants grew up in high or low SES households. The protective influence of a good maternal bond was especially strong for African American participants suggesting that maternal support can help protect against problems caused by minority status. Good maternal support was also linked to lower depression in later life though other factors such as financial stress were also important.
Still, the authors warn that this study has some major limitations, including the fact that it only studies the link between maternal support and health up to middle adulthood. How strong a maternal bond was during adolescence may become less important as people grow older. Even so, this study does suggest that good parenting is especially important during critical periods of development such as adolescence. It can also mean that programs encouraging better communication between mothers and their adolescents can yield important health benefits for the future.
While more research is still needed, there is already clear evidence that a good start in life can have a powerful influence on later life choices. Considering the financial and social costs associated with CVD and other forms of serious illness, the old adage that the best medicine in the world is a mother's hug may be more accurate than you think.
