The care children receive from parents in their early years may affect their physical health as adults, Scotland's most senior doctor said yesterday.

Dr Harry Burns, Chief Medical Officer, called for more support for vulnerable families and more research to show how poor parenting can cause disease in later life. Launching his annual report, Dr Burns said: "Work emerging from a number of different countries shows very clearly that the circumstances in which a child is brought into the world and in which he or she lives in the first few years of life can have a major impact on future physical and mental health."

A range of factors which can predetermine future wellbeing in early childhood were listed by Dr Burns.

These include breastfeeding, good nutrition and immunisation against infections, but also the way parents respond to a baby when it cries and a child's "opportunity for a warm reciprocal relationship with a small group of special adults".

Dr Burns quoted research from New Zealand which found children who lived in chaotic circumstances at the age of three were, in later life, more likely to experience emotional problems, unemployment and physical ill health.

He said a range of projects had to be studied to improve the welfare of the young.