Why the first thousand days of life are crucial

FINDING ANSWERS

This just can’t be overemphasized: Getting good nutrition in the womb and through early life is very important for a child.
While a time of vast potential, the 1,000 days from conception to birth and to the child’s second birthday can also be a time of immense vulnerability when the impact of poor nutrition especially on brain development can be profound, long-lasting, or even irreversible.
The quality of nutrition and nurturing environment the child receives during the critical period can spell the difference between a good life in which the child develops, grows, learns a lot in school, and eventually flourishes with a rewarding livelihood, or a life of poverty and misery with many health problems.
Many studies on brain development and expert testimonies of various professionals, ranging from neuroscientists to child care specialists worldwide, all point to this: Poor nutrition in the first 1,000 days of life can cause tremendous and irreversible damage to a growing brain, affecting the child’s ability to perform well in school and then earn a good living afterwards.
Brain development starts long before birth of the child, and progresses at astonishing speed very early on during the mother’s pregnancy. In just 16 days after conception, the brain’s neural tube forms and by seven months, the form of the brain resembles that of an adult.
By the fourth week in the womb, the brain contains around 10,000 cells that multiplies to as much as 10 billion at the 24th week of pregnancy. During this period, the brain can form 1,000 neural connections per second and such connections increase after birth.
“In the first few years of life, more than one million new neural connections are formed every second. After this period of rapid proliferation, connections are reduced through a process called pruning, so that brain circuits become more efficient,” according to scientific findings published by Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child. “Sensory pathways like those for basic vision and hearing are the first to develop, followed by early language skills and higher cognitive functions. Connections proliferate and prune in a prescribed order, with later, more complex brain circuits built upon earlier, simpler circuits.”
All throughout brain development in the womb, a mother’s diet and her stored nutrients are the only source of nutrition needed for the creation of new neurons which are “the cells that form the tissue that transmits and receives nervous impulses.”
“Nutrients also fuel the formation of synapses, which provide the basis for learning ability. When a mother lacks adequate calories, protein, fatty acids or key micronutrients in her pregnancy, these vital neurodevelopmental processes can be impaired,” according to a study titled “The role of nutrition in cognitive development” published in the Handbook of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.
“Several nutrients play an important role in building the brain during pregnancy. These include iron, protein, copper, folate, zinc, iodine and certain fats,” the study adds. “Zinc, in particular, supports the development of the autonomic nervous system, the hippocampus and the cerebellum, while iron impacts the myelination of the nerve fibers which affects the brain’s processing speed. Long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids — typically found in breast milk, fish oils and egg yolks — play a central role in the healthy development and functioning of the brain and the eyes.”
After birth, the remarkable growth and development of the child’s brain continue. Breastmilk from the mother is the “ultimate superfood” which has varied nutrients and growth hormones vital for brain development.
Studies show that a newborn who takes nothing but breastmilk for at least three months “had increased white matter development in several brain regions, associated with executive functioning, planning, social-emotional functioning and language.”
And the child who is fed more breastmilk within the first 28 days after being born “had larger volumes of certain regions of the brain and by age seven, had higher IQs and better scores in reading, mathematics, working memory and motor function tests.”
There’s no doubt that a child’s healthy development with good nutrition in the first 1,000 days of life provides the building blocks for lifelong health, superior educational achievement and economic productivity.
The Children’s 1st One Thousand Days Coalition (CFDC), recently formed to help Filipino mothers and their kids get nourished and cared for during the crucial period, realizes there is only a narrow window of opportunity in the child’s life for adequate nutrition to ensure optimal health, as well as physical and cognitive development.
The World Bank warns that childhood undernutrition is linked to “decreased lifelong income earning potential and labor force productivity” and leads to “higher health care costs and social safety net expenses — largely borne by the public sector — and less effective investments in education.”
Thus, it is of utmost importance that national government agencies and local government units work in unison with non-government organizations, business groups, socio-civic groups, and other stakeholders comprising CFDC to ensure that Filipino children are adequately cared for especially in the first 1,000 days of life. Email: [finding.lina@yahoo.com](mailto:finding.lina@yahoo.com)