Individual Submission Summary
Share...

Direct link:

Poster #104 - An Observational Study of Maternal and Infant Behaviors During Naturalistic Feeding Interactions at Age 2 months.

Thu, March 21, 12:30 to 1:45pm, Baltimore Convention Center, Floor: Level 1, Exhibit Hall B

Integrative Statement

Maternal sensitivity to an infant’s feeding cues is believed to be important for the prevention of overfeeding, rapid weight gain, and obesity in early infancy (e.g., Hurley, Cross, & Hughes, 2011). Recent work also suggests an important role for clarity of the infant’s cues during feeding (Shloim, Shafiq, Blundell-Birtill, & Hetherington, 2018). The aim of this study was to examine whether maternal (i.e., sensitivity to infant’s cue and response to infant’s distress) and infant behaviors (i.e., clarity of cues and responsiveness to caregiver) relate to infant weight-for-length z-score (WLZ).
We leveraged 128 videotaped naturalistic feeding interactions from an ongoing longitudinal study with mother-infant dyads at age 2 months. Maternal mean age was 30.34 years (SD = 5.30), with 22.7% of mothers reported as Hispanic ethnicity or non-White race. The sample was 49.2% male. We used the Nursing Child Assessment Satellite Training (NCAST) feeding scale to reliably code for presence (=1) or absence (=0) of: maternal sensitivity to infant’s cues (16 items; k = .74), maternal response to infant’s distress (11 items; k = .78), infant clarity of cues (15 items; k =.62), and infant responsiveness to caregiver (11 items; k = .70). Mean subscale scores were calculated, with higher scores representing more of the given behaviors. Infant anthropometry was measured and weight-for-length z-score (WLZ) was calculated using World Health Organization (WHO) growth references (WHO, 2008).
In bivariate analyses, maternal age, maternal race/ethnicity, and infant sex were not associated with key study variables, all p’s > .05. Table 1 presents the means, standard deviations and correlations among key study variables. Maternal sensitivity to infant’s cues was associated with infant clarity of cue and responsiveness to caregivers. Maternal response to infant distress was only associated with infant clarity of cues, but not infant responsiveness to caregivers. Maternal sensitivity to infant’s cues (but not maternal response to infant’s distress, infant clarity of cues, or infant responsiveness to caregiver) was positively associated with infant WLZ at 2 months.
Contrary to prior reports, we did not find that infant clarity of cues was related to infant WLZ. In addition, while promoting greater maternal sensitivity to infant cues has been described as an approach to preventing excessive infant weight gain and obesity, we found that greater maternal sensitivity was associated with greater infant WLZ. Further research is needed to systematically assess these associations longitudinally to better identify the role of maternal sensitivity to infant’s feeding cues.

Authors