What's Important About the First 1000 Days of Life?

November 30, 2020
Image of event speakers.

You likely don’t remember the most important time of your life. Though you are too young to form many memories during the first 1000 days of your existence, this period will have an oversized impact on your development into adolescence and adulthood. Systemic and racial inequality affects access to basic needs, healthcare, and environmental experiences which manifest into differences in behavior, cognition, and health that are evident before a child’s third birthday. On December 8, the Center will be joined by moderator Maureen Allwood (Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Adjunct Associate Professor in Population and Family Health at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health) and speaker Brenda Blasingame (Program Manager of Pritzker Children’s Initiative) for The First 1000 Days of Life: Setting the Stage for Equity. Ahead of the seminar, we spoke with Allwood and Blasingame about their work and research experience in early childhood development and the effects of institutionalized racism on education and public health.   

Brenda

As long as I can remember, I have been speaking up and focusing on issues of social change and social justice. My professional and personal work has always involved efforts focused on different social oppression issues of some kind. When I had my own children in the 90’s and started learning more about early childhood development and the associated data, it had a profound impact on me and then it all came together—my personal interest, becoming a parent, and my first job in early childhood exclusively—I guess it was synergy.

Maureen

My research career stems from several years of work with a child welfare agency that provided care for children with medical and behavioral special needs. That work was followed by work with children with traumatic brain injuries. The disproportionate risk of violence exposure among youth of color and the inequitable

system response moved me toward wanting to address trauma response on a larger scale than addressing these issues one person or one family at a time. Research can impact greater numbers of people and provides the benefit of deciding which issues will be examined and within which communities.

Brenda

The main thing I would say is different is the level of being able to be flexible and nimble and to turn on a dime and not a quarter. Private sector work has less bureaucracy which allows innovation and responsiveness to occur in different ways. This is not to say that the public sector and non-profit sectors can’t be this way. They can, but often the structures are not set up to promote this way of working.  

Maureen

For adults, post-traumatic stress responses may be organized around specific symptoms and adults may be able to articulate their distress and the events associated with their distress. Young children are more likely to present with generalized distress and the etiology may be less obvious. The expectations are often that young children exposed to trauma will recoil, regress, and show signs of fear. This is true for many, but it is also the case that young children may present with externalizing (acting out) concerns, defiance, and even attention problems. These children are likely to come to attention because of reports of problem behaviors, it is important for adults to recognize that such manifestation post-trauma are also trauma responses and in need of trauma-informed interventions and not a punitive response.

Brenda

This time period is foundational to everything that comes after. Brains are growing, adverse and benevolent experiences are being absorbed, attachment is happening between babies and the primary adults/caretakers in their lives, and this is the incubation of so many memories that will live on in the body of this human. It is this incredible beginning of a unique journey of the development of a new human being. Science and research continues to identify how everything in the first 1000 days is connected to our life course physically, emotionally, and mentally.

Maureen

As an adolescent researcher, the importance of the first 1000 days of a child’s life is not at all lost on me. Adolescent and adult health begins prenatally. In the first stages of life, access to nutrients, attachment figures, and supportive, stimulating environments are essential. Brain research and aging research now illustrate the importance of early childhood experiences on later development.

Brenda

The CDC describes public health as being concerned with protecting the health of entire populations — these populations are as small as a local neighborhood or as big as an entire country or region of the world. Public health in this country began in the 1700’s and just as every other system in this country, it was not meant to serve BIPOC (Black Indigenous People of Color) from its inception. We have to re-think/envision/create systems so they are culturally and linguistically responsive and respectful. One simple yet not achieved foundational principle is to co-create services and supports with the community of people who will be using the services and supports instead of without them. 

Maureen

Health can no longer be regarded as the absence of disease at a particular moment in time. There is a growing body of research showing that the building blocks for ill health begin early in development. Public health has to address environmental factors that have grave developmental and health outcomes among low resourced disenfranchised communities of color. Poverty, violence, safe child care and educational environments, access to healthy foods, clean water, clean air, and medical care are all factors that are tied to institutional racism and public health. As the scope of public health broadens, racial justice has to be an integral part of the narrative and the decision-making processes.

Brenda

The main call to action I want people to leave with is that there is so much work that we have to do address issues of equity for very young children and I want everyone to feel the urgency of needing to take action and not just make incremental change but transformational change because every day babies are born and children are celebrating their first, second, or third birthday and they can’t wait not one single day for more inequities to be eradicated.

Maureen

As the moderator, I hope that attendees are able to fully engage with the presentation message. I think one message is that we all have a part to play in shifting the equities that impact developing lives in the first 1000 days.

Join Brenda Blasingame and Maureen Allwood for The First 1000 Days of Life: Setting the Stage for Equity on December 8 at 4:30 PM ET on Zoom. This event is free and open to the public, but RSVP is required via Eventbrite

This event is part of the Seminars in Society and Neuroscience series and co-organized with Trauma-Free NYC.