Kerre McIvor: Silence not golden for babies

The more you talk to your babies, the better they turn out. Photo / 123RF

Years ago, a friend of mine had a young woman working for him who had to leave her job because she was pregnant and moving away from Auckland.

The dad was a fisherman from the Coromandel and they were heading there to make a life for themselves.

She really wanted to do right by her baby. She had left school without much in the way of qualifications and, as so many parents do, she wanted her child to have a better life and to make better decisions than she had.

She would be the primary caregiver as her partner would be away at sea for long stretches of time. And the only advice my mate gave to her was to talk to her baby.

Read to the baby, he said. Talk to the baby and when you're exhausted, turn on talkback radio and let the baby hear the ebb and flow of conversation.

I was there when he gave her that advice and 25 years ago I thought it seemed pretty basic. Who didn't talk to their baby? My girl was 3 at that stage, and I'd been talking to her from before she was born.

The admittedly one way conversation continued throughout her infancy.

I talked to her, her dad talked to her, my friends talked to her. Honestly, poor Kate probably collapsed into her cot every night and revelled in the sound of silence.

Her first presents were books and we read to her every night - just as my mum and dad had done for me.

And now Kate's doing the same thing with her boy and it's wonderful to see how he simply soaks up the sounds and the attention.

But it turns out the advice my mate gave all those years wasn't so simplistic.

Many parents have no idea that talking and interacting with their babies is the most important thing they can do to help them achieve their potential.

I went along to the launch of a new initiative this week, Love Grows Brains, and the speakers were intellectual allstars - people who have spent their lives working with families and children and researching the development of the brain, especially in babies.

And they said the same thing my mate said all those years ago - talk to your child.

The more you speak to your child and the more you interact with your child, the better the baby's outcome will be.

Study after study has shown the first three years - or the first 1000 days - are the most critical when it comes to children's development.

Ideally, of course, they don't spend nine months in utero in a fog of meth or other drugs and the mothers have the best possible nutrition and care while they're pregnant, but after that, if you and your baby are healthy, all you need to ensure your child's a winner is you. No expensive books or toys or baby gyms - just you, your voice and your face.

Dr Lance O'Sullivan also spoke about a project to test new mums and babies for anaemia.

Exhausted mums can't interact with their babies and tired kids can't learn.

Restoring iron levels could be a simple and inexpensive way of growing babies' brains, rather than spending a fortune later in the education system trying to remediate the lack of learning.

The Wright Foundation is funding a series of prime-time TV ads that reinforce the importance of interacting with your baby to get the message out to as many parents as possible.

All these initiatives are exactly the sort of investment that Bill English was talking about back when he was formulating sensible policy and not reverting to populist claptrap like boot camps.

It's so disappointing to see him spouting vote-catching policies that research says don't work, instead of harder, less populist policies that research says do work.

You want to empty the jails and improve the mental health of the population? Invest in the health and wellbeing of mothers and babies, sit back and wait 15-20 years. Job done.

The academics know it, the people working at the coalface with troubled youth know it and Bill English knows it, too.

• Kerre McIvor is on NewstalkZB Monday-Friday, noon-4pm.