Page 82 - Sample Moderate prematurity, socioeconomic status, and neurodevelopment in early childhood

Chapter 7
We recommend further research to disentangle the associations between emotion regulation, affective disorders, and CHD.
Additionally, it is unknown why the effect of emotion regulation goes beyond lifestyle-associated factors in individuals with a parental history of CHD. This finding may, for example, be explained by genetic factors which predispose an individual to stronger bodily responses to psychological stress. If at the same time the emotion regulation capacities are low as well, there is no safeguard against the harmful effects of stress.
CONCLUSION
In children and adolescents, biological risk factors and socioeconomic circumstances may threaten neurocognitive and social-emotional development, potentially affecting the foundations for life-long mental and physical health.
At the start of life, birth complications and socioeconomic disadvantages pose major risks for neonatal health and neurodevelopment. With the studies presented in this thesis, we demonstrated that moderate prematurity and low SES are separate risk factors that have multiplicative effects on neurodevelopmental problems in early childhood. Our findings imply that interventions should be directed at those MP children with the highest risk, since the majority of MP children will develop normally. In clinical practice, therefore, increased awareness is needed to identify those MP children with low SES and those with multiple developmental and behavioural problems. Furthermore, a gender-specific approach is called for since we found that girls were more vulnerable to the effects of moderate prematurity and low SES than boys.
Throughout life, emotion regulation skills acquired during childhood may help to promote the maintenance of mental and physical health. We found that young people’s emotion regulation capacities predicted CHD across a lifespan of 40 years, which was partly explained by higher rates of unhealthy lifestyles among those individuals with poor emotion regulation capacities. Moreover, emotion regulation affected the risk of CHD beyond lifestyle-associated factors, specifically in men with a high familial risk of CHD.
In summary, moderate prematurity and low SES increase the risk of pre-school neurodevelopmental problems, potentially affecting the foundations of mental and physical health, and from a life course perspective, social-emotional competencies that are acquired in early childhood may promote long-term health.
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