Don't Leave Your Baby too Long, They stressed Out!

They may have barely mastered sitting up by themselves. But six-month-old babies become stressed out when they don't get the attention they feel they deserve.

Levels of the stress hormone cortisol soar when they are ignored by their mother, and even a day later they are worried about the same thing happening again.

A baby who is deprived of its mother's love for just two minutes is anxious about being ignored again the next day, a study found. Experts in child development said that repeated episodes of stress could have a huge effect on a youngster's health and on his or her course in life.

To investigate whether six-month-olds are capable of anticipating trouble, the Canadian researchers invited 30 mothers and babies into their laboratory and divided them into two groups.