[Music]
if I told you that stress and trauma
during childhood are bad a really bad
you probably find that unremarkable
because you already knew that but did
you know that stress and trauma during
childhood can cause that child to grow
up to have heart disease to develop
diabetes to suffer from depression and
to die at a younger age than he would
have had he not had a stressful
childhood well it’s true recent study
after study has been showing that even
after we passed down our best health
advice right eat right exercise more
don’t smoke that more adverse childhood
experiences put that child at risk of
growing up to have chronic disease and
to die at a younger age so what I want
to think about today is what can we do
about this what can we do about this and
two things come immediately to mind
first we can get rid of childhood stress
and trauma now you know having the goal
and working toward reducing stress and
trauma and childhood is very important
but we’re never going to do away with
stress and trauma entirely it’s just not
possible so another thing that comes
immediately to mind is we can have paid
parental leave in the United States I
know that’s what you were thinking do
was know as a parent I can clearly
remember those first precious moments
with my son I have a very vivid memory
of the first time I buckled him into his
car seat to take him home from the
hospital and I also have a very clear
memory of the first time
I had to leave him to go back to work I
couldn’t believe that feeling of
separation when we dropped him off at
daycare that I was just gonna leave this
little baby with people we just met and
I can’t even imagine what it’s like for
a working mother to go through this and
the worst part of it was was when I
would get home from work and I would
actually be with him it got harder and
harder to be with him I mean there were
times it was near impossible felt near
impossible to stop thinking about work
you know that deadline next week that
meeting I have tomorrow
you know I’d be trying to be with him
over here and trying to finish an email
over here it just didn’t turn out well
for either of us and so this is where I
think we need to do a much better job
you see we need to help parents be with
their children and paid parental leave
will help them do this without having to
worry about their jobs or their income
but how is paid parental leave going to
help us with that link between childhood
stress and adulthood health well to
understand this we need to understand
how childhood stress is having an impact
on adulthood health and I’ve been doing
research on stress and health now for
about 22 years and one thing I can tell
you is that heart disease diabetes even
depression they all have one thing in
common and that is that stress is a
significant factor when it comes to what
causes these diseases and what makes
them worse so how to stress do this well
think of a time when you felt really
stressed like like you’re driving down
the road and the guy in front of your
steps on the brakes and his car starts
spinning sideways so you press on your
brakes your car starts sliding toward
the rail your heart is thumping your
muscles are tensing you can feel your
stomach drop like a rock
this is a stress response technically
it’s called the fight-or-flight response
and it’s that shot
of adrenaline that get your body working
really hard to mobilize energy with
hormones now we all have our own style
of stress response
you see when we’re children our minds
and our bodies are learning how to
respond to stress and once we learn a
style we pretty much have that same
style for the rest of our lives
some researchers found this pattern with
rats the rats that they had with pups
were in cages together and they would
remove the rat pups from the mothers
care and this was very stressful for
those rat babies and when they did that
these rats grew up to be much more
anxious they had much worse stress
responses where they had elevated levels
of stress hormones and every time we
have these unhealthy stress responses
they bring us one step closer to
developing chronic disease so over a
lifetime those steps build up the effect
of stress occurs over a lifetime and
that lifetime begins in childhood so
what we need to do is we need to cheat
teach our children to have healthier
stress responses that they can carry
with them for the rest of their lives
and to do this we can look back at those
rats I just told you about because the
researchers found that when you took the
rats and the rat pups were stressed and
you place them back into the cage with
their mothers some of the mothers were
very nurturing and others were not how
do we tell the difference
well the nurturing mothers would
immediately start licking and grooming
and comforting these rats their pups
where as an honoring mother wouldn’t do
that and so although all of the rat pups
went through the same childhood stressor
of being removed from their mother’s
care they grew up to be very different
rats see the adult rats that had non
nurturing mothers they grew up to be
those anxious stressed rats that I told
you about the ones that received a
nurturing care after stress they grew up
to be a lot less anxious in fact they
were adventurous and they had much
healthier responses to stress so the
point here is that childhood stress
happened childhood stress happens and
what made a difference was whether or
not the rat pup received licking and
grooming comforting care after the
stress
so before we start teaching parents to
be better liquors and groomers we should
be doing everything in our power to make
sure that they can be there to offer
comfort and in the United States we make
it very hard for a lot of families to do
this you see if we look around the world
there are only eight countries that do
not have paid parental leave policies
eight the United States is one of those
eight the other seven countries have a
combined population that is one fiftieth
the size of the United States combined
and they have a combined economy that is
one five hundredth the size of the
United States we do not belong on this
list now if we look at a list we do
belong on with other industrialized
wealthy countries that in fact have paid
parental leave we have the worst rate of
infant mortality among them the worst
more babies die in our country than in
any of these others every year we have
the highest rate of obesity and we have
the 34th right we’re behind 33 other
countries in life expectancy I mean
these numbers are very surprising to a
lot of people but it’s where we stand
now I’m not saying that paid parental
leave is going to drastically change
these numbers all by itself but what I
am saying is that it’s clear to me that
an essential next step is that we do
everything in our power to make sure
that families can be with their children
and paid parental leave is a way to do
this so that these children can grow up
to have health happier longer lives paid
parental leave is for our children for
our children’s health not only as
children but as adults because they are
our greatest investment
if I told you that stress and trauma
during childhood are bad a really bad
you probably find that unremarkable
because you already knew that but did
you know that stress and trauma during
childhood can cause that child to grow
up to have heart disease to develop
diabetes to suffer from depression and
to die at a younger age than he would
have had he not had a stressful
childhood well it’s true recent study
after study has been showing that even
after we passed down our best health
advice right eat right exercise more
don’t smoke that more adverse childhood
experiences put that child at risk of
growing up to have chronic disease and
to die at a younger age so what I want
to think about today is what can we do
about this what can we do about this and
two things come immediately to mind
first we can get rid of childhood stress
and trauma now you know having the goal
and working toward reducing stress and
trauma and childhood is very important
but we’re never going to do away with
stress and trauma entirely it’s just not
possible so another thing that comes
immediately to mind is we can have paid
parental leave in the United States I
know that’s what you were thinking do
was know as a parent I can clearly
remember those first precious moments
with my son I have a very vivid memory
of the first time I buckled him into his
car seat to take him home from the
hospital and I also have a very clear
memory of the first time
I had to leave him to go back to work I
couldn’t believe that feeling of
separation when we dropped him off at
daycare that I was just gonna leave this
little baby with people we just met and
I can’t even imagine what it’s like for
a working mother to go through this and
the worst part of it was was when I
would get home from work and I would
actually be with him it got harder and
harder to be with him I mean there were
times it was near impossible felt near
impossible to stop thinking about work
you know that deadline next week that
meeting I have tomorrow
you know I’d be trying to be with him
over here and trying to finish an email
over here it just didn’t turn out well
for either of us and so this is where I
think we need to do a much better job
you see we need to help parents be with
their children and paid parental leave
will help them do this without having to
worry about their jobs or their income
but how is paid parental leave going to
help us with that link between childhood
stress and adulthood health well to
understand this we need to understand
how childhood stress is having an impact
on adulthood health and I’ve been doing
research on stress and health now for
about 22 years and one thing I can tell
you is that heart disease diabetes even
depression they all have one thing in
common and that is that stress is a
significant factor when it comes to what
causes these diseases and what makes
them worse so how to stress do this well
think of a time when you felt really
stressed like like you’re driving down
the road and the guy in front of your
steps on the brakes and his car starts
spinning sideways so you press on your
brakes your car starts sliding toward
the rail your heart is thumping your
muscles are tensing you can feel your
stomach drop like a rock
this is a stress response technically
it’s called the fight-or-flight response
and it’s that shot
of adrenaline that get your body working
really hard to mobilize energy with
hormones now we all have our own style
of stress response
you see when we’re children our minds
and our bodies are learning how to
respond to stress and once we learn a
style we pretty much have that same
style for the rest of our lives
some researchers found this pattern with
rats the rats that they had with pups
were in cages together and they would
remove the rat pups from the mothers
care and this was very stressful for
those rat babies and when they did that
these rats grew up to be much more
anxious they had much worse stress
responses where they had elevated levels
of stress hormones and every time we
have these unhealthy stress responses
they bring us one step closer to
developing chronic disease so over a
lifetime those steps build up the effect
of stress occurs over a lifetime and
that lifetime begins in childhood so
what we need to do is we need to cheat
teach our children to have healthier
stress responses that they can carry
with them for the rest of their lives
and to do this we can look back at those
rats I just told you about because the
researchers found that when you took the
rats and the rat pups were stressed and
you place them back into the cage with
their mothers some of the mothers were
very nurturing and others were not how
do we tell the difference
well the nurturing mothers would
immediately start licking and grooming
and comforting these rats their pups
where as an honoring mother wouldn’t do
that and so although all of the rat pups
went through the same childhood stressor
of being removed from their mother’s
care they grew up to be very different
rats see the adult rats that had non
nurturing mothers they grew up to be
those anxious stressed rats that I told
you about the ones that received a
nurturing care after stress they grew up
to be a lot less anxious in fact they
were adventurous and they had much
healthier responses to stress so the
point here is that childhood stress
happened childhood stress happens and
what made a difference was whether or
not the rat pup received licking and
grooming comforting care after the
stress
so before we start teaching parents to
be better liquors and groomers we should
be doing everything in our power to make
sure that they can be there to offer
comfort and in the United States we make
it very hard for a lot of families to do
this you see if we look around the world
there are only eight countries that do
not have paid parental leave policies
eight the United States is one of those
eight the other seven countries have a
combined population that is one fiftieth
the size of the United States combined
and they have a combined economy that is
one five hundredth the size of the
United States we do not belong on this
list now if we look at a list we do
belong on with other industrialized
wealthy countries that in fact have paid
parental leave we have the worst rate of
infant mortality among them the worst
more babies die in our country than in
any of these others every year we have
the highest rate of obesity and we have
the 34th right we’re behind 33 other
countries in life expectancy I mean
these numbers are very surprising to a
lot of people but it’s where we stand
now I’m not saying that paid parental
leave is going to drastically change
these numbers all by itself but what I
am saying is that it’s clear to me that
an essential next step is that we do
everything in our power to make sure
that families can be with their children
and paid parental leave is a way to do
this so that these children can grow up
to have health happier longer lives paid
parental leave is for our children for
our children’s health not only as
children but as adults because they are
our greatest investment
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