Fathers’ early interactions with babies may affect child health years later

How a new father behaves toward his baby can change family dynamics in a way that affects the child’s heart and metabolic health years later, according to a new study by researchers in the Penn State College of Health and Human Development. In the study, recently published in Health Psychology, the research team found that fathers who were warm and developmentally supportive with their babies at 10 months of age had more positive co-parenting with the child’s mother when the child was two years old. In families where this pattern played out, the child’s bloodwork indicated better markers of physical health at seven years of age. In contrast, neither the mother’s warmth when the child was 10 months old nor her positive or negative co-parenting when the child was two predicted the child’s physical health at age seven. This doesn’t mean that mothers do not matter, the researchers said. “Everyone in the family matters a lot,” said Alp Aytuglu, postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Biobehavioral Health. “Mothers are often the primary caregivers, and children are experiencing the most growth and development. The takeaway here is that in families with a father in the household, dads affect the environment in ways that can support - or undermine - the health of the child for years to come.” Prior research by other scientists demonstrated that children raised in high-conflict or unstable households can be at greater risk for health problems, including elevated inflammation, lower ability to regulate blood sugar and obesity. Those studies primarily examined the effects of mothers on children, according to Aytuglu. In this study, the researchers wanted to examine the entire family and the various interactions within a family. Using data from the Penn State Family Foundations project, funded by the National Institutes of Health, the researchers examined videos and other information from 399 families in the United States that included a mother, a father and first child. Families in the study were 83% non-Hispanic white and had higher than average levels of education and income. When each child in the study was 10 and 24 months old, Family Foundations researchers visited the families’ homes and recorded 18-minute videos of the parents playing with their child. Researchers then reviewed the video and observed individual parenting behaviors and co-parenting behaviors. For both videos, trained evaluators assigned codes to the mother’s and father’s parenting attributes, including whether parents responded to the child in a timely manner, how warmly parents behaved toward the child and how appropriate parents’ responses were for a child that age. Evaluators also examined co-parenting behavior in the video. Specifically, they identified instances where the parents competed for the child’s attention - rather than playing with the child together or taking turns with the child more naturally. The researchers observed that when one parent competitively gained the child’s attention, the other parent often withdrew from the interaction, disengaging from the play. When the child was seven years old, the Family Foundations researchers collected a dried blood sample...

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