SCIENCE IS ON THE BISHOP OF GOZO’S SIDE: NEW STUDIES ABOUT BABIES’ EARLY ATTACHMENT SUPPORT HIS CLAIM

By Mario Attard

Recent scientific research is increasingly highlighting the importance of close, consistent caregiving in the earliest years of life, findings that lend measured support to comments made by the Bishop of Gozo, Anton Teuma, regarding the benefits of maternal care during infancy.

A notable recent paper, “The immediate effect of kangaroo mother care on mother–infant inter-brain synchrony and infant brain function” (Liu et al., 2026), provides striking neurological evidence. The study shows that sustained skin-to-skin contact between mother and infant enhances synchronisation between their brain activity and supports early neural development. While focused on newborns, the research underscores a broader principle: that maternal presence is not merely emotional, but biologically formative.

This aligns with findings from the 2025 study “A healthy start: examining the contribution of caregiving environments to child development” (Vacaru, 2025), which emphasises that sensitive, responsive caregiving is central to healthy behavioural development. Drawing on attachment theory, the study concludes that infants require stable, attentive relationships with primary caregivers to form secure emotional bonds, a foundation for later social and psychological wellbeing.

Contemporary psychological analysis drawing on decades of research, including insights discussed in Psychology Today (2025), reiterates that “babies up to around 2 years of age do best when cared for by one or two primary caregivers”. The author, a psychologist and psychoanalyst, frames this as drawn from her training and supported by research on daycare and attachment. This reflects a long-standing consensus within developmental psychology.

Taken together, these studies consistently highlight the unique developmental value of close, stable, and responsive caregiving in the first years of life, conditions most commonly associated with parental, and especially maternal, care at home.

The Gozo Diocese deserves recognition for its ongoing pro-family initiatives and pastoral work, which continue to support parents in creating nurturing home environments for their children. Such efforts reflect a commitment not only to spiritual guidance but also to the wellbeing of families at a crucial stage of life.

Considering the above, the Bishop of Gozo’s remarks resonate with an identifiable strand of current scientific research. The latest evidence increasingly affirms that, where possible, sustained maternal presence in early childhood offers meaningful developmental advantages. The Maltese Parliament is increasingly confused about sex and marital relationships, leading to its inability to find a sound biological definition on what is a woman. Bereft of the basic principles of biology, much less is it able to define what a mother is.Parliament would do well to tune in to science and the Catholic Diocese of Gozo.