ABSTRACT
Children's earliest years, the ones that matter most, do not start with birthdays or even births but with conception. The first 1001 days are critical because they take a person from potential to actual, from conception to the second birthday. During that period of fetal development, infancy and toddlerhood that the brain is growing and developing with maximum speed that renders it more open to and dependent on outside influence than it will ever be again. A healthy newborn baby's brain has all the neurons she needs. Dopamine, a neurotransmitter which is released from the brainstem and makes its way to the prefrontal cortex, enhances the uptake of glucose, helping new tissue to grow in the prefrontal brain. In 'Attachment' John Bowlby showed that the perspectives of both Freud and Darwin were relevant to his understanding of the mother-baby bond. Stepping even further ahead of his time he speculated about the brain systems involved in this evolutionary mechanism.
