Parental discord raises stress hormone level in kids

Minnesota, United States, November 17: Watching mom and dad shout at each other may upset the child leading to not only psychological problems but also physiological changes in the body of the child, a new study suggests.

For a long time psychologists have known that a strong child parent bond is the key to kids' mental health. Now the new study found that kids who witness their parents arguing have higher levels of the cortisol, the primary stress hormone in human.

The high cortisol levels have a long-term impact on children's health and learning. The higher and more prolonged levels of cortisol in the bloodstream have been shown to have negative effects, including impaired cognitive performance, suppressed thyroid function, imbalances in blood sugar level such as hyperglycemiadefine, decreased bone density, decrease in muscle tissue and hypertension and thus putting them at higher risks of heart attacks and strokes, low immunity and inflammatory responses in the body and other health problems.

The scientists from the University of Rochester (UR) in New York, the University of Minnesota in Minnesota and the University of Notre Dame, studied 208 six-year-old white children, during simulated telephone arguments between their parents. The authors wanted to see if the kids have changes in the level of cortisol while listening to their parents shouting at each other. They used salivadefine samples to measure the changes in their levels of the stress hormone.

The researchers measured kids’ distress, hostility and level of involvement in the arguments and received reports from mothers of the children on how their children respond to fights at home. Cortisol levels were measured by taking saliva samples both before and after the conflicts in the lab.

The findings, which appear online in the Nov. 14, 2008 issue of the journal Child Development, show that kids who were very upset by the lab-created fights had higher levels of cortisol in response to their parents fighting.

They also found that the kids’ levels of hostility and their involvement during the telephone arguments were not always linked to their levels of cortisol. However, children who acted highly to fights had increased levels of stress hormone.

Lead author of the study, Patrick T. Davies, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of Rochester, in New York, said, “Because higher levels of cortisol have been linked to a wide range of mental and physical health difficulties, high levels of cortisol may help explain why children who experience high levels of distress when their parents argue are more likely to experience later health problems.”

He added, "Our results indicate that children who are distressed by conflict between their parents show greater biological sensitivity to conflict in the form of higher levels of the stress hormone, cortisol."

The study was funded in part by the National Institute of Mental Health.

Another latest study conducted by researchers at Washington State University, Auburn University, the Washington State Department of Early Learning, and the Pennsylvania State University, has found that many preschoolers in full-day child care have registered increases in cortisol from morning to afternoon. Cortisol is present in the body at higher levels in the morning and at its lowest at night but that was not the case with the young children.

Another past study published in the Feb. 2006 issue of journal Child Development showed that kids in high-conflict homes have much more restless sleep and daytime sleepiness. The more unresolved the parental conflicts, the more disrupted the child's sleep.