Pregnant Women’s Physiological Responses to Infant Distress Predict Infants’ Behavioral Avoidance During the Still-Face Paradigm

• In Event: Developmental Pathways Toward Emotional Risk and Resilience: the Role of Parent Characteristics

Abstract

Infant crying is intended to elicit proximity and care from parents (Bowlby, 1969/1982). However, adults experience a wide range of responses to infant cries, including variation in physiological responses, which in turn are associated with caregiving behaviors (Ablow et al., 2013; Leerkes et al., 2016). Little is known about whether parents’ physiological responses to infant cries have intergenerational consequences and are associated with their infants’ emerging regulation abilities. The goal of the current study is to examine whether changes in pregnant women’s electrodermal (EDA) and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) levels in response to an infant cry predict young infants’ regulation behaviors during a socially stressful task when the infant is seven months. The second goal of the study is to assess whether maternal sensitivity mediates the anticipated association between maternal physiological responses and infant behaviors.
This longitudinal study included 97 mother-infant dyads. Women were first invited to the lab when they were in their third trimester of pregnancy. Women were fitted with electrodes used to collect EDA and RSA before watching a one-minute video baseline. Next, the women watched a one-minute video of a mother and infant playing, followed by a one-minute video of the infant alone crying. Physiological reactivity scores were created by subtracting mothers’ average physiological levels during the video baseline from their average levels during the cry video.
The women participated in a second lab visit with their infants when their infants were seven months old. During this visit, mother-infant dyads participated in a variation of the Still-Face Paradigm (SFP; Tronick et al., 1978), which is a task intended to elicit a distress response from infants. The SFP involves a mother-infant play portion, followed by two emotional separations and reunions. Infants’ avoidance and resistance behaviors were coded during the reunions using 3-point scales (Kogan & Carter, 1996). Mothers’ sensitivity to infant non-distress was coded during the play episode, and sensitivity to infant distress was coded during the reunions (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 1996).
Results indicated that infants exhibited highly avoidant behavior if their mothers experienced high EDA reactivity or blunted RSA reactivity (i.e., experienced less of an RSA withdrawal) in response to the infant cry video (see Table 1). Infants’ resistance behaviors were not significantly associated with women’s EDA or RSA responses to the cry video. Maternal sensitivity to infant distress or non-distress did not significantly mediate the associations between pregnant women’s physiological responses to the cry video and infants’ behavioral avoidance.
Altogether, these results indicate that infants are more likely to withdraw and disengage from their mothers when they are distressed if their mothers previously exhibited high sympathetic nervous system activation and/or a lack of parasympathetic withdrawal when viewing a video of a distressed infant. Although maternal sensitivity did not mediate the associations between maternal physiological responses and infant avoidance behavior, our findings suggest that the variation in infants’ early regulation behaviors may be partially due to parents’ responses to their infant’s cues.

Authors

• Bailey Speck, University of Utah
  Presenting Author

• Jennifer Isenhour, University of Utah

• Mengyu (Miranda) Gao, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, China

• Liz Conradt, Duke University

• Sheila E Crowell, University of Utah

• Lee Raby, University of Utah