A controversial psychologist has been criticised for a new report that says New Zealand mothers could be harming their children by sending them to daycare.
The report Who Cares? Mothers, Daycare and Child Wellbeing in New Zealand - commissioned by Family First New Zealand and prepared by British psychologist AricSigman - looks at the potential impacts of separating a child from their parent in the first few years of life.
The 30-page report, which drew on previously published research from around the world, said attending daycare, and the subsequent separation from parents, was a significant source of stress for many children.
It said 70 to 80 per cent of children in centre-based daycare had increasing levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which could be harmful to the child's immune system.
