Children younger than 18 months who are enrolled in daycare don’t suffer any emotional, behavioral or linguistic effects, according to a new study by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.
"For most children there is no evidence from our findings to suggest that it is harmful to begin in center-based childcare at 12 months," explained study author Synnve Schjølberg.
"Neither do the findings suggest that most children who are cared for at home up to 18 months of age are better prepared than children cared for by others in the same period."
Using over 60,000 responses to the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study, the researchers found that language development for females was not effected by type of childcare. There were slight developmental delays in boys who were enrolled in daycare before 18 months of age, but the difference was too small to be clinically significant.
They found no link between type of childcare and the presence of emotional problems in five year olds. Children who had spent more than 40 hours a week being cared for outside the home were slightly more likely to demonstrate behavioral problems at age five, but this difference was also very small.
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