Short and Long Term Effects on Infants and Toddlers in Full Time Daycare Centers

Full-time daycare for infants and toddlers is stressful. This negative state is
induced by perception of maternal rejection and abandonment, lack of an ongoing empathic dyadic relationship
with the mother, and having to interact with multiple caregivers. The lack of empathic care the children are
experiencing creates a growth-inhibiting environment that produces immature, physiologically undifferentiated
orbital affect regulatory systems and parcellation of corticolimbic circuitries. Daycare stress is activating each
child’s hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis on a daily basis causing a persistent overproduction of
corticotropin-release factor (CRF) and an ongoing release of abnormally high levels of stress hormones such as
cortisol and the catecholamines, hormones that may disrupt the neurobiological maturation of the developing
brain and destroy brain cells. These stress-induced impairments are implicated in an enduring vulnerability to
various later-forming psychiatric disorders such as depression, chronic anxiety, attachment disorders,
dissociative disorders, learning disorders, and attention deficit-hyperactivity (ADHD).