New research presented at the 70th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology suggests that birth order impacts child perceptions of maternal solicitousness toward GI symptoms, particularly in families where the mother has Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS).
Researcher Rona L. Levy, Ph.D. and colleagues at the University of Washington and other institutions looked at whether parents respond differently to GI symptoms as a function of the child's birth order, and whether this relationship differs by maternal IBS status.
Researchers looked at survey data from 342 children of 228 mothers, 112 of whom had a diagnosis of IBS. The children completed the child-report version of the Adult Responses to Children's Symptoms Inventory (Van Slyke & Walker, 2004), which measures parental solicitousness. Items such as "When you have a stomach ache, how often do your parents let you stay home from school?" were designed to assess protectiveness.
Child perceptions of parental protectiveness differed as a function of birth order, with second and third born children perceiving greater parental protectiveness than did only children. This effect was apparent for children of mothers with IBS, but not for children of mothers who did not have IBS.
"I think parents do protect first-borns, but there is always the phenomenon of the family baby. In my personal experience, my youngest kid often calls out for more being taken care of, and I also think I always see her as younger - at every age - than her sisters were at the same age," commented Dr. Levy.