1001 Days: How Our First Years Shape Our Lifelong Health

An essential guide to some of the biggest and most compelling issues in healthcare and psychology

by Sue Gerhardt

Sue Gerhardt is a brilliant and trustworthy researcher, and this book is a fascinating combination of rigorous science and interesting case studies. 1,001 Days is an essential guide to some of the biggest and most compelling issues in healthcare and psychology, and it should be read by anyone interested in their own health, their children's health, or building better societies. -- Philippa Perry, author of 'The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read'.

Jaw-droppingly important, far-ranging, and yet easy to read. Caring for babies, in and out of the womb - and for their mums and dads - emerges as the engine of lifelong health. Personally, and politically, Sue Gerhardt’s message is of immense importance. Should we ever achieve a society of glowing health, this book will be seen as a turning point that made it possible. -- Steve Biddulph, psychologist and author of 'Raising Boys' and 'The Secret of Happy Children'

1001 Days is an extraordinary tour de force, one every policymaker, doctor, parent, indeed anyone who cares about the future, should read. Gerhardt seamlessly integrates an incredible breadth of research into a riveting account of how the roots of adult health, both good and bad, lie in infancy and childhood. In contrast to the world of biohacks and quick fix quackery, Gerhardt uses the latest science to show how it's the quality of our earliest relationships that etches our future health into our very cells, and how stress and trauma are irrefutably linked to the likelihood of later illnesses. This is a game changing book of the utmost importance, with a message that urgently needs shouting from the rooftops. -- Dr. Graham Music, Consultant Psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic and author of NURTURING NATURES

About the Author(s)

Dr Sue Gerhardt is a practicing psychotherapist living and working in Oxford, England.

Dr Gerhardt has been awarded an honorary doctorate for her work in educating the public about neuroscience and child development. She is the author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed Why Love Matters, which explains how affection shapes a child’s brain in the first few months of life. Poignantly, she has also recently been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, a disease thought to have some of its roots in infancy.

Her first job after leaving Cambridge University was as a paralegal worker in a community law centre in north London, working mainly with disaffected youths in trouble with the law. She later went on to become a filmmaker, of such films as Tell It Like It Is, about sexual abuse within the black community.

In the 1990s, she became a psychotherapist and studied early child development with the Tavistock Clinic. Inspired by the work of Daniel Stern, she co-founded a charity, the Oxford Parent Infant Project (OXPIP) in 1997 to provide psychotherapy for parents and babies under 2. The organisation continues to flourish and serves around 500 families a year. She is delighted that there are now many new PIPs springing into existence around the UK.