Published in Scientific American in 2013, "Anguish of the Abandoned Child: The plight of orphanaed Romanian children reveals the psychic and physical scars from first years spent without a loving, responsibe caregiver" describes the findings from the first-ever randomized trial comparing the emotional and physical well-being of institutionalized children with those placed in foster care in Bucharest, Romania.
Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu banned birth control and abortion in 1966 to increase Romania’s population. Overwhelmed, parents left children by the thousands in state institutions. Romanian officials, in trying later to make up for these abuses, agreed to a study by U.S. investigators to determine the inimical effects of early life in an orphanage on the still large numbers of institutionalized children. A first-ever randomized trial comparing the emotional and physical well-being of institutionalized children with those placed in a foster home began in Bucharest in 2000. Life in an orphanage took its toll. The study found that children who passed the first two years in an institution had a lower IQ and attenuated brain activity compared with foster children or those never institutionalized.
