End Childhood Trauma !!!

I have read this morning in horror the story about the tragic death of Annelise Sanderson in yesterday’s Sunday Times - And then the news today about the Lambeth Child abuse Scandal !!!

Continual childhood trauma activates – the Hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis system over and over and over again. This becomes damaging to health.

Childhood trauma affects reward, memory and threat systems. Termed Latent vulnerability in later life can lead to overreactions – and to a greater risk of harmful conflict and new stress events. People who have suffered childhood trauma find it harder to deal with everyday life challenges when they feel unconfident and anxious inside, making it harder to build positive relationships

A multidisciplinary approach is required to lessen the suffering of the trauma – home visits, mental health, nutrition, holistic and medication when necessary.

In the UK there is an individual’s medical history record which now needs to include a mandatory record of the level of trauma an individual has been or is being exposed to.

This approach has equal application for helping drug addicts – but I will leave that subject for another day. Suffice to say the time to act is now to train all the different agencies across the whole health value chain on the impact of trauma given the dreadful Covid 19 pandemic impact to mental health and domestic violence.