TORONTO -- A year into the pandemic and sick of being cooped up in their homes, many Canadians may feel like they’re near the breaking point. But for infants and toddlers, the lack of contact with people outside of their immediate family means they’re missing out on social and biological interactions that are key for their development, say experts.
Marie-Claire Arrieta, an assistant professor in the department of physiology and pharmacology at the University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine, says that the early years up until pre-school age are critical for exposure to microorganisms that help digest our food, protect us from disease and regulate our immune system.
“The concern now is that in many cases we know these signals come from our contact with other humans which during a pandemic has been drastically reduced,” she said.
According to Arrieta, the pandemic isolation is just part of a larger picture of modern life reducing our exposure to microbes, such as through overuse of antibiotics and our increasingly urban indoor lifestyles, which reduce the amount of organisms we pick up from animals and soil.
“Many of us feel that the pandemic is worsening that concern for two main reasons: the fact that children are now in less contact with other children and then the extreme hygiene that everyone has to be mindful about now,” she said.
Arrieta said it’s difficult to predict the long-term outcomes of the pandemic-related isolation, but that the overall consequence of a lack of microbial diversity is higher risk of certain diseases, including asthma and allergies, as well as obesity.
With social isolation likely to continue until vaccines are more fully rolled out, Arrieta said parents can maximize the amount of microbes their children encounter by getting them outside as the weather warms up.
“Go outside, go for hikes. Let the kids get dirty, play outside, do what kids do,” she said.
On the socialization side, experts also worry about the impact of isolation, although that concern is less pronounced regarding infants. While interactions with other humans are paramount from the get-go for kids, the key social contacts for babies are their parents or immediate caregivers, says Sheri Madigan, a clinical child psychologist at the University of Calgary.
“I think for young kids those (parental) interactions are really important and you know a lot of parents are at home and alone right now and there's lots of time for the kids to spend with the parents,” she said.
However, when children approach age three, their need for engagement with other children becomes more important as they begin to develop back-and-forth communication skills with others.
“You can think of these as like serve and return interactions,” said Madigan. “I think that's a really critical time for kids to start to take the social skills that they learn from interacting with their caregivers and start applying them to how they interact with other kids their age.”
Madigan also worries about the impact of social isolation on parents, and the potential for that to prevent them from parenting at their best.
“I think one of the things that's maybe been most difficult for parents is that they aren't getting the interactions that they need,” she said. “We know that our cup is often a lot more full when we've been able to go out and have a social snack or a conversation with someone.”
Madigan says she’s optimistic that children will be able to play catch-up on their social development once the pandemic ends, though parents may want to try to ease them back into what would be normal levels of social interactions.
“I think that we have to be careful not to throw them back in all at once, but create some gradual entry points for kids to you play with one friend and then maybe play with a few friends, so kind of build them up, “she said.
Regarding microbial health, one bright spot from the pandemic isolation is that there has been less spread of other viruses, and people have also taken fewer antibiotics, says Arrieta.
“From the microbial point of view the pandemic is changing a lot of things. Some of them are concerning but some of them may actually be good news.”
