Of Two Minds: Prenatal Cognitive and Affective Responding to Infant Cues and Antecedents of Caregiving

• In Event: The Conflicts and Balances of Parents’ Reactivity to Caregiving Demands and Parenting: A Developmental Lens

Abstract

Introduction. Pregnancy is a period of biopsychosocial adjustment. Expectant mothers begin to form emotional bonds with their future infants, a process linked with positive caregiving behaviors postpartum (Foley & Hughes, 2018). Notwithstanding, pregnancy also entails coping with prospective uncertainty and stress vulnerability (Saxbe et al., 2018) which can challenge parental regulation. Parents’ processing of infant affective communicative cues (e.g., facial expressions) is considered essential for sensitive-responsive caregiving (Kozava et al., 2020), and can be captured prenatally to inform on caregiving antecedents. Responsiveness to distress (versus neutral/happy) cues has been of particular interest given their role in signaling infants’ need for co-regulation. Nonetheless, recent research raises the need to also examine enhanced responsiveness to neutral cues as a potential risk factor (Yatziv et al., 2021). Importantly, enhanced prenatal neural responsiveness to neutral cues has been linked with maternal anxiety and maladaptive postpartum mentalizing (Rutherford et al., 2017, 2018). The ambiguity of infant neutral faces may challenge adaptive responding to infant needs.

Aims. This study aimed to examine how affective and cognitive responding to infant neutral and distress faces relate to prenatal representations of the future infant and anxiety.

Sample. Forty-seven pregnant women (Mage=29.9 years) in the third trimester (Mweeks=34; 59.5% primiparous) participated. Participants predominantly identified as White non-Hispanic/Latino (n=16) and African American (n=14), and 61.9% completed education beyond high school (Medu=15.9 years).

Methods. Participants viewed images of infants displaying distress (50%) or neutral expressions and rated how certain they were of how the baby feels (“1–Not at all certain” to “7–Very certain”; ‘certainty’) and how the baby made them feel (“1-Sad” to “7–Happy”; ‘affective response’). To measure prenatal mentalizing, participants described what their baby would be like at 6 months of age, and descriptions were coded for mind-mindedness (Arnott & Meins, 2008). To measure prenatal anxiety and attitudes towards uncertainty, participants completed the Pregnancy-Related Anxiety Questionnaire-Revised (Huizink et al. 2004) and the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale (Carleton et al., 2007); subscales loaded on two principal components (Table 1).

Results. Expectant mothers had greater certainty about (t(46)=4.12, p<.001) and more negative affective response to (t(46)=16.985, p<.001) distress versus neutral infant faces. Generalized linear models (Table 2) indicated that more positive affective response to neutral faces was related to higher prenatal mentalizing, whereas lower certainty about neutral infant faces was related to higher anxiety about uncertainty. Post-hoc analyses indicated that the latter effect was primarily driven by prospective anxiety and fear of giving birth. More predictions about the future infant (mental and non-mental) correlated with greater certainty about infant distress (Spearman’s r=.31, p=.035).

Conclusions. Prenatal processing of neutral infant cues may inform on antecedents of caregiving, including mentalizing and coping with uncertainty. Consistent with previous studies, generally forming representations of the future infant was related to certainty about distress cues; however, prenatal mentalizing appears to be specifically related to positive affective responding to ambiguous infant emotions. Interpretation of neutral infant faces may track difficulty withstanding uncertainty. Future directions in unpacking interpretation of infant distress and neutral cues will be discussed.

Authors

• Tal Yatziv, Yale University
  Presenting Author

• Emily A. Vancor, Yale University

• Eloise Sutton, Yale University

• karen milligan, Ryerson University

• Helena JV Rutherford, Yale University