Poster #23 - Maternal Touch Behaviors and Infant RSA During Still-Face Reunion: Associations with Mothers’ Trauma Symptoms

• In Event: 2-055 - Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Section - Biological Processes: Psychophysiology

Integrative Statement

Introduction: Touch is key to caregiver-infant bonding in the postnatal period (Feldman et al., 2010). Observations from rat models suggest that touch may be one of multiple "hidden regulators" at work in mother-infant dyads (Hofer, 2006). In a role that is perhaps inseparable from its regulatory function, touch also forms part of the early communication system (Hertenstein, 2002). Caregiver touch communicates a range of emotions to the infant, with consequences for the infant's biobehavioral regulation (Hertenstein, 2002).

The Still Face Paradigm (SF) provides an ideal context to investigate the regulatory effects of maternal touch behaviors. Existing evidence suggests that allowing touch during the neutral-face phase of the SF can attenuate infants’ stress response (Feldman et al., 2010). Earlier work by Peláez-Noguera and colleagues (1996) found that touch during the neutral-face phase modulated infants’ affect differently according to mothers’ depressive symptomatology, suggesting that maternal psychopathology may moderate the regulatory effect of maternal touch during the still-face episode. The goal of the present study was to characterize maternal touch behaviors in the SF reunion and to examine whether features of maternal touch predict infant vagal suppression during this same reunion. Mothers’ trauma symptomatology was expected to modulate the effect of touch on infant vagal suppression.

Method: The sample for the present study represents a subset of a cohort of N = 105 low-SES infant-mother dyads studied prospectively across the pre- to postnatal transition. During a post-partum assessment at 5 months, mother-infant dyads participated in the SF and completed the Trauma Symptom Checklist-40 (TSC-40; Briere & Runtz, 1989). Maternal touch behaviors during reunion were micro-coded offline using second-by-second behavioral coding software (Noldus, Wageningen, the Netherlands). Maternal touch categories were those devised by Feldman and colleagues (2007). The system codes maternal touch mysynchrony, which it defines as maternal stimulatory and/or proprioceptive touch in the setting of infant gaze aversion. Finally, infant RSA was measured throughout the SF. For each infant, random regression models were used to generate an intercept and slope of RSA change during the reunion phase.

Results and Discussion: Mothers spent between 0.00 and 93.47 percent of reunion engaged in infant-directed touch (M = 55.68, SD = 31.24). Total TSC scores ranged from 2 to 54 (M = 22.63, SD = 12.39). Regression analyses sought to determine if TSC scores interact with touch measures to predict RSA recovery. These demonstrated neither a main effect of proportion of time spent in touch on RSA recovery (B = .009, p = .952) nor a main effect of TSC scores (B = .132, p =.414). These variables did not interact to predict RSA recovery (B = .053, p = .738). Analyses are underway to determine if maternal touch mysynchrony may impede an increase in infant RSA on reunion. Insofar as mysynchrony constitutes a form of insensitivity to infant cues, this finding would accord with existing evidence that maternal sensitivity during reunion is associated with an increase in RSA (Ablow & Conradt, 2010; Moore et al., 2009), with implications for our understanding of sensitivity and its expression in touch behaviors.

Authors

• Katherine Hagan, University of Oregon
  Presenting Author

• Jennifer C Ablow, University of Oregon
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jeffrey Measelle, University of Oregon
  Non-Presenting Author