Maternal Postnatal, but not Prenatal, Emotion Dysregulation Predicted Infant Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia Responses

• In Event: Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Topic - Biological Processes: Psychophysiology

Abstract

Introduction: Infant respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA)––an index of parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) functioning––is an important, yet minimally studied infant psychophysiological measure with respect to its association with maternal distress during the perinatal period. There are two important challenges in this field. First, there is disagreement regarding how best to measure “maternal distress” without overlooking relevant stress domains or disregarding the severity of different stressors (Dunkel Schetter, 2011). Maternal emotion dysregulation, a transdiagnostic construct that spans across mental health diagnoses and socioeconomic stressors (Beauchaine & Cicchetti, 2019), may be one useful indicator of maternal distress. Second, although the development of the PNS is shaped by both the prenatal, intrauterine influences and the postnatal, caregiving environment (Del Giudice, Ellis, & Shirtcliff, 2011), less is known about the unique contribution of prenatal and postnatal maternal distress to infant RSA responses. To addresses these two challenges, the present study examined whether prenatal and postnatal emotion dysregulation were independently related to infant RSA trajectories during a stressful task.
Method: Women (N = 162) participated in this study during their third trimester of pregnancy. At 7 months postpartum, 114 mother-infant dyads returned to the laboratory and completed the Still-Face Paradigm (Haley & Stansbury, 2003), which included a 2-minute free-play period, 2 minutes of mothers maintaining flat affect (i.e., Still-Face episode), and a 2-minute recovery period during which mothers resumed interactions with their infants (i.e., Reunion episode). Infants’ RSA were collected continuously and scored separately for each 60-second epoch, resulting in six RSA scores across the SFP. Maternal emotion dysregulation was measured with the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS; Gratz & Roemer, 2004) during the prenatal and 7-month visits. We used multilevel modeling in SAS 9.4 and incorporated both linear and quadratic effects of time (across 6 minutes) at Level-1. Coefficients of linear and quadratic terms represented RSA reactivity and recovery, respectively. Maternal prenatal and postnatal DERS were included separately in Level-2. All analyses were preregistered on Open Science Framework (osf.io/zpk3j).
Results: Table 1 summarizes results from three multilevel models. Infant RSA decreased (b = -.26, p < .01) and then increased (b = .04, p < .01) over the course of the SFP, indicating a pattern of initial RSA suppression and subsequent RSA rebound. Postnatal, but not prenatal, maternal emotion dysregulation was associated with this quadratic pattern of infant RSA. Specifically, infants of less dysregulated mothers exhibited greater initial RSA suppression (b =.007, p = .02) and greater subsequent RSA recovery (b = - .001, p = .03; see Figure 1). No sex differences were observed.
Conclusion: High maternal postnatal emotion dysregulation was related to a blunted (i.e., dampened reactivity and recovery) infant RSA response profile during a stressful situation. Despite a strong association with postnatal emotion dysregulation, maternal prenatal emotion dysregulation did not influence infant RSA responses. These findings suggest that postnatal interventions promoting effective maternal emotion regulation may reduce risk for infants’ problematic psychophysiological stress responses.

Authors

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

• Parisa R. Kaliush, University of Utah
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mindy A. Brown, Brigham Young University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Nila Shakiba, University of Utah
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lee Raby, University of Utah
  Non-Presenting Author

• Liz Conradt, Duke University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sheila E Crowell, University of Utah
  Non-Presenting Author