Should You Let Your Baby Watch TV?

March 4, 2009 by tanya
Filed under: Baby Health, News

The American Academy of Pediatrics have recommended that toddlers under two-years-old are not over exposed to TV.

With the popularity of TV shows and DVDs like Baby Einstein, many parents believe that the shows will stimulate their infants and will help them learn.

Recent studies published in this months Pediatrics shows that a the more time a baby spends watching TV, the worse they perform in language and motor-skill tests at the age of three.

When the results were looked at in detail, it was found that factors such as the mother’s education level and household income played a more significant importance in the study.

Marie Evans Schmidt, who carried out the research, concluded that TV-viewing alone did not influence brain development of infants, but the home environment mattered more.

Previous studies suggest that mothers with less education and income do not read to their babies as much, and that there is less verbal interaction between mother and child.

Mothers who have a higher level of education and income will often tell more stories and use gestures.

Research published earlier from Dr. Dimitri Christakis at Seattle Children’s Research Institute found that there was no benefit in young children watching TV. For each extra hour a baby under 16 months spent in front of a TV, they learnt six to eight less vocabulary words than infants who did not watch any programs.

“We don’t have any definitive answers yet as to what effects TV-viewing can have on infants with respect to cognitive outcomes,” says Christakis. “But here is what we do know — there is absolutely no benefit to this viewing despite claims that continue to be made by commercial products.”

He also reported that basic activities such as playing with blocks with an 18-month-old will be a more effective method of improving language skills later on.

Although studies show that babies watching TV will not improve your childs IQ, they do agree that in moderation the risks of harm are quite low.