The Effects of a Prenatal Mindfulness Intervention on Infant Autonomic and Behavioral Reactivity and Regulation

• In Event: Prenatal Interventions to Promote Healthy Development in Early Childhood

Abstract

Objective: Maternal stress during pregnancy is associated with increased risk for psychopathology in children (O’Connor et al., 2014). The current study examined whether maternal participation in an efficacious stress-reduction and health-promotion mindfulness intervention during pregnancy (Epel et al., 2019) would be associated with early biobehavioral markers of psychopathological risk in their infants.
Method: Participants were 135 mother-infant dyads drawn from a racially and ethnically diverse, low-income sample experiencing high stress. During pregnancy, the mothers participated in an intervention study that found women assigned to a mindfulness-based stress-reduction group reported decreases in stress and depression relative to the treatment-as-usual comparison group. At 6 months of age, infant sympathetic (pre-ejection period) and parasympathetic nervous system (respiratory sinus arrhythmia) and objectively-coded behavioral (negativity and object engagement) reactivity and regulation were assessed during the Still Face Paradigm (SFP; Tronick et al., 1978). Linear mixed effects and generalized linear mixed effects models were used to examine treatment group differences in infant outcomes.
Results: Relative to those in the intervention group, infants in the treatment-as-usual group showed a delay in sympathetic activation and subsequent recovery across the SFP. In addition, intervention group infants engaged in higher proportions of self-regulatory behavior during the paradigm, compared to treatment-as-usual group infants. No significant effect of intervention was found for parasympathetic response or for negative behavior.
Conclusion: Findings provide evidence that participation in a low-cost, short-term mindfulness intervention during pregnancy is associated with differences in early development of physiological and behavioral stress reactivity and regulation, systems relevant for psychopathology risk, in the offspring. Thus, prenatal behavioral interventions may be beneficial across generations.

Authors

• Amanda Norona-Zhou, University of California - San Francisco
  Presenting Author

• Michael Coccia, University of California, San Francisco
  Non-Presenting Author

• Karen M. Jones-Mason, University of California, San Francisco
  Non-Presenting Author

• Abbey Alkon, University of California - San Francisco
  Non-Presenting Author

• Cassandra Vieten, John W Brick Foundation
  Non-Presenting Author

• Barbara Laraia, University of California, Berkeley
  Non-Presenting Author

• Elissa Epel, University of California, San Francisco
  Non-Presenting Author

• Nancy Adler, University of California, San Francisco
  Non-Presenting Author

• Nicole R Bush, University of California - San Francisco
  Non-Presenting Author