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Caregiving plays a critical role in children's cognitive, emotional, and psychological well-being. In the current longitudinal study, we investigated the enduring effects of early maternal behavior on processes of interbrain synchrony in adolescence. Mother-infant naturalistic interactions were filmed when infants were 3-4 months old and interactions were coded for maternal sensitivity and intrusiveness with the Coding Interactive Behavior Manual. In early adolescence (Mean = 12.30, SD = 1.25), mother-adolescent interbrain synchrony was measured using hyperscanning EEG during a naturalistic interaction of positive valence. Guided by previous hyperscanning studies, we focused on interbrain connections within the right frontotemporal interbrain network. Results indicate that maternal sensitivity in early infancy was longitudinally associated with neural synchrony in the right interbrain frontotemporal network. Post-hoc comparisons highlighted enhancement of mother-adolescent frontal-frontal connectivity, a connection that has been implicated in parent-child social communication. In contrast, maternal intrusiveness in infancy was linked with attenuation of interbrain synchrony in the right interbrain frontotemporal network. Sensitivity and intrusiveness are key maternal social orientations that have shown to be individually stable in the mother-child relationship from infancy to adulthood and foreshadow children's positive and negative social-emotional outcomes, respectively. Our findings are the first to demonstrate that these two maternal orientations play a role in enhancing or attenuating the child's interbrain frontotemporal network, which sustains social communication and affiliation. Results suggest that the reported long-term impact of maternal sensitivity and intrusiveness may relate, in part, to its effects on tuning the child's brain to sociality., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Caregivers are instrumental in the development of infant emotion regulation; however, few studies have focused on delineating the real-time effectiveness of strategies that caregivers use to reduce infant distress. It is also unclear whether certain caregiver traits facilitate engagement in more successful regulation strategies. This study addressed these gaps by: (1) examining the differential effectiveness of maternal regulatory attempts (MRAs; behavioral strategies initiated by mothers to assist infants with regulating emotional states) in reducing 12- to 24-month-old infants' frustration during a toy removal task; and (2) assessing whether maternal mind-mindedness (mothers' attunement to their infant's mental state) predicted mothers' selection of MRAs. Multilevel modeling revealed that distraction and control were the most effective MRAs in reducing infant negative affect across 5-s intervals (N = 82 dyads; M infant age = 18 months; 45 females). Greater use of non-attuned mind-related speech predicted less engagement in effective MRAs, supporting a link between caregivers' socio-cognitive skills and provision of in-the-moment regulation support. These findings highlight the value of considering caregiver regulatory behaviors as a target for elucidating how maternal socialization of emotion regulation occurs in real-time. They also underscore mothers' important role as socializing agents in the development of this foundational developmental ability., (© 2024 The Authors. Infancy published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Congress of Infant Studies.)

Protective parenting, when enacted in contexts that do not require it, predicts child anxiety. Both child (e.g., temperament) and maternal (e.g., physiology and cognition) factors relate to parenting behavior, supporting family systems theory. In order to better understand the development of environmental risk for child anxiety, the present study applied the integrated social information and emotion processing theory to protective parenting, assessing concurrent relations among child temperament, maternal physiology, maternal cognitions, and protective parenting in toddlerhood. The present study also investigated whether the theory could be applied to longitudinal relations, testing cognition as a mechanism by which maternal physiology and child temperament predict maternal protective parenting over time. Study participants included 189 mothers (89.9% White, 2.1% Hispanic, 32.3% with annual household income ≤ $40,000) and children (55.6% male, 81.0% White, 3.7% Hispanic). Results indicated that the theory was partially applicable to both concurrent and prospective mother-child relations implicated in child anxiety development. Namely, child inhibited temperament (IT) related concurrently to maternal beliefs about the harm of child anxiety at child age 1 year, and to maternal protective parenting at child ages 2 and 3 years. Maternal baseline respiratory sinus arrythmia related to protective parenting at child age 3 years. Longitudinally, maternal beliefs at child age 1 year predicted maternal perceptions of child IT at child age 2 years. Maternal beliefs at child age 2 years predicted maternal protective parenting at child age 3 years. Although the mechanistic role of cognition was not supported, child emotion processes and maternal cognitions may uniquely contribute to maternal protective parenting. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Previous research indicates that maternal cortisol function and maternal brain response to infant are each in turn related to variations in parenting behavior. However, little is known about how maternal cortisol and maternal brain function are associated, thus studying these two mechanisms together may improve our understanding of how maternal cortisol assessed during interactions with own infant is associated with brain response to infant cry. First-time mothers (N = 59) of infants aged 3-4 months old were recruited to participate. Mothers' cortisol concentration was measured during a naturalistic interaction with their infant and their behavior was coded for two parenting behaviors-- maternal sensitivity and non-intrusiveness. In an fMRI session, mothers listened to their own infant and a control infant crying. Higher cortisol concentration was associated with more intrusive behavior. We found greater cortisol concentration was further associated with decreased activation in the brain to infant cry in the right precentral gyrus, the left culmen extending into the left inferior temporal gyrus and fusiform, two clusters in the superior temporal gyrus, and in the medial frontal gyrus. We also found that lower activation in these regions was associated with more intrusive maternal behavior. These data demonstrate the associations between maternal cortisol concentration and reduced brain activation to infant cry in both motor planning and auditory processing regions in predicting intrusive parenting behavior., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors of the enclosed manuscript declare that there are no financial or personal interests that may affect the objectivity of the information contained and written in the manuscript., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Although a considerable literature documents associations between early mother-infant interaction and cognitive outcomes in the first years of life, few studies examine the contributions of contingently coordinated mother-infant interaction to infant cognitive development. This study examined associations between the temporal dynamics of the contingent coordination of mother-infant face-to-face interaction at 4 months and cognitive performance on the Bayley Scales of Infant Development at age one year in a sample of (N = 100) Latina mother-infant pairs. Split-screen videotaped interactions were coded on a one second time base for the communication modalities of infant and mother gaze and facial affect, infant vocal affect, and mother touch. Multi-level time-series models evaluated self- and interactive contingent processes in these modalities and revealed 4-month patterns of interaction associated with higher one-year cognitive performance, not identified in prior studies. Infant and mother self-contingency, the moment-to-moment probability that the individual's prior behavior predicts the individual's future behavior, was the most robust measure associated with infant cognitive performance. Self-contingency findings showed that more varying infant behavior was optimal for higher infant cognitive performance, namely, greater modulation of negative affect; more stable maternal behavior was optimal for higher infant cognitive performance, namely, greater likelihood of sustaining positive facial affect. Although interactive contingency findings were sparse, they showed that, when mothers looked away, or dampened their faces to interest or mild negative facial affect, infants with higher 12-month cognitive performance were less likely to show negative vocal affect. We suggest that infant ability to modulate negative affect, and maternal ability to sustain positive affect, may be mutually reinforcing, together creating a dyadic climate that is associated with more optimal infant cognitive development., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Research suggests that women's autonomic nervous system responses to infant cries capture processes that affect their parenting behaviors. The aim of this study was to build on prior work by testing whether pregnant women's autonomic responses to an unfamiliar infant crying also predict their infants' emerging regulation abilities. Participants included 97 women in their third trimester of pregnancy, located in the United States. Most participants identified as White/non-Hispanic (48%) or Hispanic (30%), their mean age was approximately 30 years, and the modal family income was $40,000-$79,999. Pregnant women's respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and skin conductance levels (SCL)-which are thought to capture emotional engagement and behavioral inhibition, respectively-were measured while the women watched a relaxing video and a video of an unfamiliar infant crying. Approximately 7 months later, women and their infants completed the still-face paradigm (SFP). Infants' avoidance and resistance behaviors during the SFP reunions were rated. Pregnant women's RSA and SCL responses to the infant cry video uniquely predicted infants' avoidance (but not resistance) during the SFP. Infants displayed higher levels of avoidance when their mothers exhibited lower levels of RSA reactivity or when their mothers exhibited higher levels of SCL activity in response to the infant cry video. Maternal sensitivity during mother-infant free-play interactions did not mediate the associations between pregnant women's autonomic responses to the cry video and infants' avoidant behavior during the SFP. Discussion focuses on potential mechanisms underlying associations between pregnant women's autonomic responses to infant distress and infants' socioemotional development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Infant stimuli elicit widespread neural and behavioral response in human adults, and such massive allocation of resources attests to the evolutionary significance of the primary attachment. Here, we examined whether attachment reminders also trigger cross-brain concordance and generate greater neural uniformity, as indicated by intersubject correlation. Human mothers were imaged twice in oxytocin/placebo administration design, and stimuli included four ecological videos of a standard unfamiliar mother and infant: two infant/mother alone ( Alone ) and two mother-infant dyadic contexts ( Social ). Theory-driven analysis measured cross-brain synchrony in preregistered nodes of the parental caregiving network (PCN), which integrates subcortical structures underpinning mammalian mothering with cortical areas implicated in simulation, mentalization, and emotion regulation, and data-driven analysis assessed brain-wide concordance using whole-brain parcellation. Results demonstrated widespread cross-brain synchrony in both the PCN and across the neuroaxis, from primary sensory/somatosensory areas, through insular-cingulate regions, to temporal and prefrontal cortices. The Social context yielded significantly more cross-brain concordance, with PCNs striatum, parahippocampal gyrus, superior temporal sulcus, ACC, and PFC displaying cross-brain synchrony only to mother-infant social cues. Moment-by-moment fluctuations in mother-infant social synchrony, ranging from episodes of low synchrony to tightly coordinated positive bouts, were tracked online by cross-brain concordance in the preregistered ACC. Findings indicate that social attachment stimuli, representing evolutionary-salient universal cues that require no verbal narrative, trigger substantial interbrain concordance and suggest that the mother-infant bond, an icon standing at the heart of human civilization, may function to glue brains into a unified experience and bind humans into social groups. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Infant stimuli elicit widespread neural response in human adults, attesting to their evolutionary significance, but do they also trigger cross-brain concordance and induce neural uniformity among perceivers? We measured cross-brain synchrony to ecological mother-infant videos. We used theory-driven analysis, measuring cross-brain concordance in the parenting network, and data-driven analysis, assessing brain-wide concordance using whole-brain parcellation. Attachment cues triggered widespread cross-brain concordance in both the parenting network and across the neuroaxis. Moment-by-moment fluctuations in behavioral synchrony were tracked online by cross-brain variability in ACC. Attachment reminders bind humans' brains into a unitary experience and stimuli characterized by social synchrony enhance neural similarity among participants, describing one mechanism by which attachment bonds provide the neural template for the consolidation of social groups., (Copyright © 2023 Shimon-Raz et al.)

Objective: The main objective of the present longitudinal study is to describe the progression of early adult-child interactions between the first and second years of life. Changes identified in interactions are described, focusing on both the qualitative aspects of maternal responses, as well as maternal response latency to the child's behavior using a microanalytical methodology that collected data on maternal and child behavior in real-time without losing sight of the temporal dimension., Participants: This study examined 52 mother-child dyads from intact families that presented no psychological, social, or biological risk factors at 6, 12 and 18 months of age., Instrument: CITMI-R (early mother-child interaction coding system, revised edition) was used to assess early mother-infant interactions during free play sessions between mother and child the., Results: The results indicate that some components of maternal sensitivity improve as children progress towards the second year of life, detecting an increase in sensitive maternal behavior and a decrease in intrusive behavior in the evolutive observed period; moreover, regarding latency of maternal response, we observed that mothers of older children give more time for their children to explore, which stimulates autonomy. Finally, the implication of these results for intervention directed to optimizing early adult-child interactions are addressed., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Anxiety symptoms are common among women during pregnancy and the postpartum period, potentially having detrimental effects on both mother and child's well-being. Perinatal maternal anxiety interferes with a core facet of adaptive caregiving: mothers' sensitive responsiveness to infant affective communicative 'cues.' This review summarizes the current research on the neural correlates of maternal processing of infant cues in the presence of perinatal anxiety, outlines its limitations, and offers next steps to advance future research. Functional neuroimaging studies examining the neural circuitry involved in, and electrophysiological studies examining the temporal dynamics of, processing infant cues during pregnancy and postpartum are reviewed. Studies have generally indicated mixed findings, although emerging themes suggest that anxiety may be implicated in several stages of processing infant cues- detection, interpretation, and reaction- contingent upon cue valence. Limitations include inconsistent designs, lack of differentiation between anxiety and depression symptoms, and limited consideration of parenting-specific (versus domain-general) anxiety. Future studies should incorporate longitudinal investigation of multiple levels of analysis spanning neural, cognitive, and observed aspects of sensitive caregiving., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Smartphone use during parent-child interactions is highly prevalent, however, there is a lack of scientific knowledge on how smartphone use during breastfeeding or face-to-face interactions may modulate mothers' attentive responsiveness towards the infant as well as maternal physiological arousal. In the present study, we provide the first evidence for the influence of the smartphone on maternal physiological responses and her attention towards the infant during breastfeeding and face-to-face interactions. Twenty breastfeeding mothers and their infants participated in this lab study during which electrodermal activity, cardiograph impedance, and gaze patterns were monitored in breastfeeding and face-to-face interactions with three conditions manipulating the level of maternal smartphone involvement. We report that mothers' gaze toward their infants decreased when breastfeeding while using the smartphone compared to face-to-face interaction. Further, we show that greater maternal electrodermal activity and cardiac output were related to longer maternal gaze fixation toward the smartphone during breastfeeding. Finally, results indicate that mothers' smartphone addiction levels were negatively correlated with electrodermal activity during breastfeeding. This study provides an initial basis for much required further research that will explore the influence of smartphone use on maternal biobehavioral responses in this digital age and the consequences for infant cognitive, emotional, and social development., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Background: Skin-to-skin contact between mother and infant immediately after birth is recommended regardless of delivery method; however, it is less common after cesarean delivery. We aimed to describe and compare women's experiences of cesarean birth with and without skin-to-skin contact at an urban tertiary care hospital., Methods: In this hermeneutic phenomenologic study, we used semistructured telephone interviews from 2015 to 2018 to interview a convenience sample of women who delivered at term by scheduled skin-to-skin cesarean birth at an urban tertiary care hospital in Toronto, Ontario. Women were invited to participate if they had had a previous planned or unplanned cesarean birth and a scheduled skin-to-skin cesarean birth between 2013 and 2017. Participants were excluded if they had antenatally diagnosed conditions, they delivered before 37 weeks, they had general anesthesia, their condition was unstable at the time of surgery, a skin-to-skin cesarean birth was not possible or they declined skin-to-skin cesarean birth. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and analyzed by means of thematic analysis., Results: Ten women were interviewed 1-19 months postpartum. Four central themes emerged: support for skin-to-skin cesarean birth (women feeling supported by their families and health care providers); control (participants experiencing greater control during their skin-to-skin cesarean birth); connection with the infant, which enabled women to be active participants in their delivery, enhanced bonding and intimacy, facilitated breastfeeding and bolstered confidence during early parenthood; and logistic considerations, with participants recognizing that skin-to-skin cesarean birth required additional resources., Interpretation: These findings refine what is known about skin-to-skin cesarean birth and provide a critical perspective, that of mothers. They support the transformation of traditional operating room dynamics to a more patient-centred environment., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© 2021 CMA Joule Inc. or its licensors.)

Guided by a biopsychosocial perspective of mothering, this study investigated the interplay among biological (maternal cortisol reactivity), psychological (maternal depressive symptoms), and social (infant emotion and regulation) factors in contributing to early changes in maternal parenting. Participants were 1292 low-income, mother-infant pairs, assessed when the infants were 6-months (T1), 15-months (T2), and 24-months old (T3). Maternal parenting was observed at all assessment points. At T1, infant emotion expression and orienting towards mothers were observed, when maternal cortisol reactivity was assessed. Mothers reported their depressive symptoms at T1. Exploratory factor analysis revealed two parenting factors across time points: positive engagement and negative intrusiveness. Second-order latent growth curve models revealed interactions among maternal cortisol reactivity, depressive symptoms, and child negative emotion/orienting at T1 in predicting intercepts and slopes of two parenting factors. T1 maternal cortisol reactivity was associated with a higher positive engagement intercept for infants having high negative emotion at T1, but a lower positive engagement intercept for infants with low negative emotion at T1, under low T1 maternal depressive symptoms. T1 maternal cortisol reactivity was also related to a lower negative intrusiveness intercept for infants showing high orienting at T1. Longitudinally, maternal cortisol reactivity at T1 predicted a faster decline in positive engagement when infants showed high negative emotion at T1, but a slower decline when infants were less negative at T1. This study reveals a bivalent adaptation process in maternal sensitivity and enhances the current understanding of how biopsychosocial factors contribute to maternal parenting in low-income families., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

This article explores the development of a rat model of mother-infant relationships from its origins in the psychosomatic investigations of the mid-1960s to its elaboration into a theoretical system in neurobiology. I reconstruct the research trajectory of a group of neurobiologists in the United States, with a focus on the experimental practices they adopted while building this animal model. Providing a microhistory of this decade-long undertaking, I show that what drove the development of the model in practice was a serendipitous finding about infants' response to maternal separation. Detected inadvertently, the pup's separation response acquired an epistemic significance of its own and reoriented the experimental system towards unanticipated paths. To explain this intriguing phenomenon, the neurobiologists kept on refining their material manipulations and stabilizing their experimental outcomes. They thus established a series of causal relationships that connected dysregulations of the infant's physiological systems to disruptions in maternal care. As important as this interactive stabilization of technique and objects in the laboratory was how the researchers theorized the network of relationships derived from this technically constituted objectivity. Highlighting the practice-driven aspects of model-building, I demonstrate that what facilitated this theoretical process was an integrated design of complementary experiments. The outcome of each separate experiment of the research program came to bear upon the outcomes of other experiments, informing the development of future manipulations. It was this strategically driven integration process that allowed the experimenters to build expanding networks of causal relationships and consolidate them into a neurobiological theory., (© 2021. Springer Nature Switzerland AG.)

Background: Maternal prenatal stress is associated with worse socio-emotional outcomes in offspring throughout childhood. However, the association between prenatal stress and later caregiving sensitivity is not well understood, despite the significant role that caregiving quality plays in child socio-emotional development. The goal of this study was to examine whether dimensions of pregnancy-specific stress are correlated with observer-based postnatal maternal caregiving sensitivity in pregnant adolescents., Methods: Healthy, nulliparous pregnant adolescents (n = 244; 90 % LatinX) reported on their pregnancy-specific stress using the Revised Prenatal Distress Questionnaire (NuPDQ). Of these 244, 71 participated in a follow-up visit at 14 months postpartum. Videotaped observations of mother-child free play interactions at 14 months postpartum were coded for maternal warmth and contingent responsiveness. Confirmatory factor analysis of the NuPDQ supported a three-factor model of pregnancy-specific stress, with factors including stress about the social and economic context, baby's health, and physical symptoms of pregnancy., Results: Greater pregnancy-specific stress about social and economic context and physical symptoms of pregnancy was associated with reduced maternal warmth but not contingent responsiveness., Conclusions: Heightened maternal stress about the social and economic context of the perinatal period and physical symptoms of pregnancy may already signal future difficulties in caregiving and provide an optimal opening for early parenting interventions.

Physiological stress is thought to be one way that early adversity may impact children's health. How this occurs may be related to parental factors such as mothers' own stress and parenting behaviour. Hair cortisol offers a novel method for examining long-term physiological stress in mother-child dyads. The current study used hair cortisol to examine the role that maternal physiological stress and parenting behaviours play in explaining any effects of adversity on young children's physiological stress. This cross-sectional study comprised 603 mother-child dyads at child age 2 years, recruited during pregnancy for their experience of adversity through an Australian nurse home visiting trial. Hair cortisol data were available for 438 participating mothers (73%) and 319 (53%) children. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to define composite exposures of economic (e.g. unemployment, financial hardship) and psychosocial (e.g. poor mental health, family violence) adversity, and positive maternal parenting behaviour (e.g. warm, responsive). Structural equation modelling examined maternal mediating pathways through which adversity was associated with children's physiological stress. Results of the structural model showed that higher maternal and child physiological stress (hair cortisol) were positively associated with one another. Parenting behaviour was not associated with children's physiological stress. There was no evidence of any mediating pathways by which economic or psychosocial adversity were associated with children's physiological stress. The independent association identified between maternal and child hair cortisol suggests that young children's physiological stress may not be determined by exogenous environmental exposures; endogenous genetic factors may play a greater role.

There has been increasing scholarly attention to the study of maternal sensitivity as a multidimensional construct. This report investigated the predictive value of three dimensions of sensitivity during mother-infant interactions in an effort to gain greater understanding of how specific facets of sensitivity relate to child socioemotional outcomes. Maternal cooperation/attunement (accurate interpretation of infant cues and capacity to adjust the interaction correspondingly), positivity (positive attitude toward the infant), and accessibility/availability (consistent attentiveness) were assessed observationally in 195 mothers of 1-year-old infants. Child socioemotional functioning was assessed using behavioral tasks and maternal and teacher reports when children were 4 years of age. The results revealed that maternal accessibility/availability was predictive of less externalizing behavior, more prosocial behavior (mother- and teacher-reported), and better theory of mind, while maternal positivity predicted effortful control. These results highlight the advantages of a multidimensional assessment in understanding how sensitivity predicts different developmental outcomes., (© 2021 International Congress of Infant Studies (ICIS).)

This investigation used sequential analysis to examine patterns of maternal solicitation and adolescent disclosure that occur in adolescents' and mothers' conversations about peer relationships. An ethnically diverse sample of 68 early adolescents (M age = 12.39; 51% girls) and their mothers from the United States participated in the investigation. Participants completed questionnaires and participated in video-recorded discussions of hypothetical situations related to peer relationships. Sequences of maternal solicitation followed by adolescent disclosure and sequences of adolescent disclosure followed by maternal solicitation occurred at higher than chance levels. Higher levels of conflict about peer relationships in conjunction with a lower likelihood of adolescent disclosure following maternal solicitation were related to lower levels of adolescent-reported prosocial behavior, higher levels of adolescent-reported victimization, and higher levels of mother-reported aggression and victimization. Results suggest that similar interaction dynamics can have different effects depending on the relational context in which they take place. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Parental scaffolding, or parenting behaviors that support children's independence and competence, can foster children's self-regulation development. Children facing higher cumulative risk may experience less scaffolding and more directives from parents, but it is unclear how cumulative risk affects the dynamics of parent-child interactions in real time. We examined the role of cumulative risk in mothers' moment-to-moment use of scaffolding and directives in response to preschoolers' off- and on-task behaviors ( N = 117). Mothers answered questionnaires about cumulative risk at child age 2.5 years and completed a challenging puzzle task with their preschoolers at age 3 years. Continuous-time multilevel survival analyses revealed differences by cumulative risk in the likelihood of mothers' parenting responses following children's off- and on-task behavioral transitions over the course of the interaction. Specifically, when children went off-task, higher cumulative risk was associated with a lower likelihood of maternal scaffolding, but a comparable likelihood of directives, compared to lower risk mothers. When children got on-task, mothers with higher cumulative risk were less likely to respond with scaffolding and more likely to respond with directives than lower risk mothers. These results suggest that parents at higher risk respond with less scaffolding regardless of child behavior and respond with more directive commands when they may be unnecessary. Findings provide novel, real-time descriptive information about how and when parents experiencing cumulative risk use scaffolding and directive strategies, thus informing microlevel targets for intervention. Implications for the development of self-regulation in children at risk are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Across species, unpredictable patterns of maternal behavior are emerging as novel predictors of aberrant cognitive and emotional outcomes later in life. In animal models, exposure to unpredictable patterns of maternal behavior alters brain circuit maturation and cognitive and emotional outcomes. However, whether exposure to such signals in humans alters the development of brain pathways is unknown. In mother-child dyads, we tested the hypothesis that exposure to more unpredictable maternal signals in infancy is associated with aberrant maturation of corticolimbic pathways. We focused on the uncinate fasciculus, the primary fiber bundle connecting the amygdala to the orbitofrontal cortex and a key component of the medial temporal lobe-prefrontal cortex circuit. Infant exposure to unpredictable maternal sensory signals was assessed at 6 and 12 months. Using high angular resolution diffusion imaging, we quantified the integrity of the uncinate fasciculus using generalized fractional anisotropy (GFA). Higher maternal unpredictability during infancy presaged greater uncinate fasciculus GFA in children 9-11 years of age ( n = 69, 29 female). In contrast to the uncinate, GFA of a second corticolimbic projection, the hippocampal cingulum, was not associated with maternal unpredictability. Addressing the overall functional significance of the uncinate and cingulum relationships, we found that the resulting imbalance of medial temporal lobe-prefrontal cortex connectivity partially mediated the association between unpredictable maternal sensory signals and impaired episodic memory function. These results suggest that unbalanced maturation of corticolimbic circuits is a mechanism by which early unpredictable sensory signals may impact cognition later in life. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Our prior work across species demonstrated that unpredictable patterns of maternal care are associated with compromised memory function. However, the neurobiological mechanisms by which this occurs in humans remain unknown. Here, we identify an association of exposure to unpredictable patterns of maternal sensory signals with the integrity of corticolimbic circuits involved in emotion and cognition using state-of-the-art diffusion imaging techniques and analyses. We find that exposure to early unpredictability is associated with higher integrity of the uncinate fasciculus with no effect on a second corticolimbic pathway, the cingulum. The resulting imbalance of corticolimbic circuit development is a novel mediator of the association between unpredictable patterns of maternal care and poorer episodic memory., (Copyright © 2021 the authors.)

Objectives: Past research used equity theory and social comparison theory to explain the direct effect of maternal differential treatment (MDT) on psychological well-being. However, this focus on psychological pathways ignores possible social pathways, such as indirect effects of MDT on well-being through disrupting other family relationships. This study uses stress proliferation theory to argue that MDT, as a primary stressor in mother-child relationships, can produce secondary stressors in other family relationships (e.g., sibling tension and marital tension), which in turn leads to lower psychological well-being., Methods: To investigate this mechanism, we conducted multilevel mediation analysis using data collected from 720 adult children nested within 308 families, as part of the Within-Family Differences Study., Results: We found that sibling tension mediates the association between adult children's perceptions of maternal disfavoritism and their psychological well-being-a process we call the stress proliferation of maternal disfavoritism. In contrast, adult children's perceptions of maternal favoritism cannot trigger this stress proliferation process of producing marital tension nor sibling tension., Discussion: The evaluation of the stress proliferation process of maternal favoritism and disfavoritism can help us to understand the difference in effects across various dimensions of MDT. This study contributes to the literature on social relationships as social determinants of health by investigating how intergenerational relationships are connected to other family relationships to affect family members' health., (© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Infant's patterns of regulatory behavior contribute to infant socioemotional development and attachment. These behavioral patterns affect and are affected by the quality of mother-infant interaction. In most studies with full-term infants, the Social-Positive Oriented pattern (i.e., the infant's ability to soothe his/her emotions in the context of reciprocal and positive interactions) is the most prevalent pattern, followed by the Distressed-Inconsolable and by the Self-Comfort Oriented patterns. However, these patterns are understudied in other populations beyond the US and European countries. The current research addresses this gap by studying the regulatory behavior patterns and their association with mother-infant interactions in Brazilian dyads and evaluating the association of these regulatory patterns with demographics. Analyses were based on data collected for 40 infants (20 boys, 20 girls) and their mothers. Infants' regulatory behavior patterns were evaluated in the Face-to-Face Still-Face paradigm and mother-infant interaction was evaluated during free play at 3 months age. Notably, our findings indicate that Distressed-Inconsolable was the most prevalent pattern in this sample; followed by the Social-Positive Oriented and the Self-Comfort Oriented patterns. Furthermore, we found that maternal sensitivity and family SES (social-economic status) predicted infant patterns of regulatory behavior., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Postpartum depression is related to inadequately sensitive caregiving, putting infants at risk for insecure attachment. Therefore, promoting sensitive maternal caregiving and secure child attachment is particularly important in postpartum depressed mothers and their infants. In this randomized-controlled-trial, we evaluated the efficacy of the Circle of Security-Intensive (COS-I)-intervention in supporting maternal sensitivity and mother-infant-attachment compared to treatment-as-usual (TAU) with unresolved-maternal attachment as a moderator of treatment effect. Eligible mothers with infants ( N =72) 4-9 months-old were randomly assigned to treatment ( n =36 dyads). Infant attachment was rated at follow-up (child age 16-18 months) (Strange-Situation-procedure). Maternal sensitivity was measured at baseline and follow-up (Mini-Maternal-Behavior-Q-sort). Maternal-unresolved-attachment was assessed at baseline (Adult-Attachment-Interview). We found no significant differences between treatments in infant attachment nor changes in mothers' sensitivity. However, in COS-I, unresolved-mothers exhibited significantly more change in sensitivity than non-unresolved-mothers, whereas in TAU, the opposite was true. These findings may help to optimize clinical use of COS-I.

This study investigated whether the effect of maternal elaborative reminiscing on child language is moderated by maternal sensitivity and whether this association depends on children's experience of maltreatment. A total of 236 mothers and their 3- to 7-year-old children (mean age = 5 years) were observed interacting with experimenter-provided toys in the lab and at home, and maternal sensitivity was coded from these interactions. Of that, 155 of the children had a history of maltreatment with the mother being named a perpetrator, and the remaining dyads were demographically matched with no history of maltreatment. Dyads were also asked to discuss four past emotional events, and these conversations were coded for maternal elaborative reminiscing. Children and mothers participated in an assessment of receptive language. Findings revealed an unqualified positive main effect of elaborative reminiscing on children's receptive language in the nonmaltreating families. However, for maltreated children, elaborative reminiscing was only associated with higher child receptive language when mothers were also more sensitive. These findings indicate that, in the context of maltreatment, both elaborative reminiscing and more general aspects of the quality of the parent-child relationship are important for facilitating child receptive language.

Introduction: Maternal early life maltreatment (ELM) and history of depression can bear a risk for adverse development in the child. One neurobiological pathway for the transmission of both maternal ELM and remitted depression (MDD) might be altered maternal cortisol levels. In the present study, we examine (1) main and interacting effects of maternal ELM and remitted MDD on hair cortisol concentration (HCC) in mothers, whether (2) maternal HCC explains the association between maternal ELM or remitted MDD and maternal child abuse potential, and (3) whether maternal child abuse potential as well as maternal HCC are associated with maternal report of child well-being., Methods: The current study involved 127 mother-child dyads. Maternal history of ELM and psychopathology were assessed via the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (M.I.N.I.) and Childhood Experience and Care (CECA) interview. The Child Abuse Potential Inventory (CAPI) was used to assess maternal child abuse and neglect potential. We applied the Kidscreen-27 parent report to study child well-being. To assess HCC, hair strands were taken from the mothers. To test the research questions, a two-factorial analysis of covariance, mediation analysis using ordinary least squares regressions with bootstrapping, and Pearson correlations were calculated., Results: Mothers with ELM had significantly increased HCC. There was no effect of remitted MDD on HCC, nor an interaction effect of both factors. HCC was a significant mediator of the association between maternal ELM and maternal child abuse potential. Maternal child abuse potential as well as HCC were significantly associated with reduced child well-being., Discussion: Our data suggest that adverse experiences in childhood are associated with altered HPA-axis functioning reflected in increased levels of HCC. HPA-axis activity is not altered in mothers with remitted MDD. From a clinical point of view, one might speculate that the partially mediating effect of maternal HCC could indicate a starting point in the prevention of the intergenerational cycle of abuse., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Transition to parenthood is considered a critical process for mothers of twins. There are, however, few studies on the subject. This study aims to evaluate the differences between mother-twin infant dyads and mother-singleton infant dyads with regard to maternal depression, anxiety, parenting stress, and the quality of mother-infant interaction. Mothers of twin infants (N = 40) were compared to mothers of singletons (N = 72). At infant 3 months, maternal depression, anxiety, and parenting stress were assessed via a questionnaire and styles of interaction with the Care-Index. The results indicated that mothers of twins (vs mothers of singletons) had significantly higher state anxiety and higher scores on the Difficult Child Scale of the Parenting Stress Index at infant 3 months. No significant differences between the two groups were found with regard to maternal depression. Mothers of twins had significantly lower sensitivity and were more unresponsive than mothers of singletons. Twin infants had significantly more difficult and compliant behaviours than singleton infants. Assisted reproductive treatment (ART) and prematurity had no effect on any of the examined variables. State anxiety was shown to partially mediate the relationship between twin parenthood and maternal sensitivity and to completely mediate the relationship between twin parenthood and infant difficult style. Maternal unresponsiveness was shown to be exclusively linked to being the parent of twins. The study shows that twin parenthood has a significant effect on maternal mental health and on the quality of mother-infant interaction and highlights the importance of early prevention programmes for twin parents.

Background: Although language difficulties are one of the most distinctive characteristics of the neuropsychological profile of children with sex chromosome trisomies (SCT), the analysis of the maternal input addressed to them is a neglected topic., Aims: The present study aims to analyse the lexical, morphosyntactic, and functional features of the input addressed to children with SCT comparing them with those of the input directed to typically developing children (TD)., Methods & Procedures: Participants were 38 mothers and their 8-month-old children, 19 with SCT and 19 TD children. Maternal utterances, collected during video-recorded play sessions, have been transcribed and coded., Outcomes & Results: No significant differences between groups have been found in the lexical and syntactic characteristics of maternal input. However, considering the input functional features, the proportion of directives and questions was significantly higher in the maternal input addressed to children with SCT than in the input addressed to TD children whereas the opposite pattern was found in the proportion of affect-salient speech., Conclusions & Implications: The awareness of a possible delay in their children's language development could influence the way the mothers speak to them. In particular, the functional features of maternal input could be affected. Support groups for parents of children with SCT at the preverbal stage could be useful to reassure the mothers about their role in their children's language development. What this paper adds What is already known on the subject Studies in the literature identified a high percentage of language delays or impairments in children with SCT. To date, according to our knowledge, there are no studies that analyse the linguistic input addressed to these children. What this study adds The lexical and syntactic features of maternal input addressed to 8-month-old children with SCT are adequate to the children's communicative skills. However, the mothers of children with SCT seem to provide additional scaffolding in their verbal input, using a lower proportion of affect-salient speech and a higher proportion of questions. In addition, a higher proportion of directives suggests the use of a more demanding style. Clinical implications of this study The awareness of possible language delays could influence the functional features of input leading mothers to use a more supportive and demanding input. Support groups for parents of children with SCT at the preverbal stage could be useful to reassure the mothers about their role in their children's language development., (© 2020 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.)

Developmental theories of emotion regulation suggest that influences from both extrinsic (e.g., from caregivers) and intrinsic (i.e., temperament) sources contribute to children's displays of emotion regulatory behaviors. Very few studies have examined specific caregiver behaviors in relation to specific regulatory behaviors. Further, few empirical investigations have tested theoretical notions that temperament may be an important context in which to understand the nature of the relation between caregiver behavior and toddlers' regulatory behaviors. The current study examined the specific maternal behavior of physical comfort in relation to three regulatory strategies exhibited by toddlers (attention-shifting, caregiver-focused behavior, and self-focused behavior) in 117 pairs of mothers and their 24-month-old toddlers. Further, we tested the temperament dimension of dysregulated fear, a more recent derivation of behavioral inhibition, both in relation to regulatory efforts and as a moderator of relations between maternal comforting and toddler regulatory behaviors. Dysregulated fear related directly and positively to attention-shifting, and it moderated the relation between maternal comforting and both caregiver-focused and self-focused behaviors. This study provides new evidence of the importance of both extrinsic and intrinsic correlates of emotion regulation in early childhood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Young maternal age at birth has been consistently recognized as a factor contributing to externalizing behavior. However, estimates of the magnitude of this association across existing studies are inconsistent. Such inconsistencies cloud the interpretation of the literature and highlight the need for a systematic synthesis of existing empirical evidence. Further, the roles of possible moderators in the association remain to be revealed. Moderation analyses will enhance the field's capacity to evaluate needs and locate a subgroup of children born to teen mothers with particularly heightened vulnerabilities. To address these gaps, the present study had two primary aims. First, a meta-analysis was conducted to quantify the magnitude of the association between being born to young mothers and children's externalizing behavior across existing studies. Second, moderation meta-analyses were conducted to evaluate whether the influence of being born to teen mothers on children's externalizing behavior is stronger during specific developmental periods, for a specific gender, for a specific race, or across contexts with varying teen pregnancy rates at a societal level. The current study followed the PRISMA guidelines. The search utilized multiple electronic databases including Web of Science, ProQuest, PubMed, and Ovid MEDLINE through July 2019. Standardized mean difference, Cohen's d, was used as a summary estimate of effect size. A random-effects model was conducted. Moderating effects were evaluated. Twenty-one effect sizes from 18 independent samples (n = 133,585) were included in the meta-analysis. The main meta-analysis and sensitivity analysis suggested a small yet robust association between teenage motherhood and children's externalizing behavior problems. The relevant moderation analyses detected no statistically significant moderating effect for a specific gender, for racial and ethnic minority groups, during a specific developmental period, or across varying contexts. The current meta-analysis findings suggest that the impact of young maternal age on children's externalizing behavior is small, yet independent. Further, such impacts of young maternal age were similar for girls and boys, in different racial and ethnic groups, across developmental periods, and across different contexts with varying teen pregnancy rates. Prevention efforts seeking to curb the emergence of youth's externalizing behavior should focus on parenting teens, regardless of their child's gender, race, age, or contexts. Further, the current findings suggest that prevention strategies for this specific group may benefit from a hybrid approach that combines universal, selective, and indicated prevention strategies.

Objective: The primary objective was to identify the characteristics of parents and infants and parenting practices associated with delayed responsiveness to infant crying during the first year of infant life. A secondary objective was to evaluate, in a subsample of maternal-infant pairs, the associations between delayed responsiveness to infant crying and observational measures of maternal-infant interaction and infant-maternal attachment., Method: This is a secondary analysis of the data from a community sample of pregnant women recruited to the Alberta Pregnancy Outcomes and Nutrition study. Mothers completed questionnaires during the first year of infant life (n = 1826), and a convenience subsample of maternal-infant pairs (n = 137) participated in laboratory assessments of maternal-infant interaction at 6 months of age and infant-maternal attachment at 20 months., Results: Parental use of "cry out" as a strategy to deal with a crying infant was associated with parental characteristics (being white and having a relatively higher income), infant characteristics (higher problematic behavior at 3 months and reduced problematic behavior at 12 months), sleep ecology (infants sleeping alone), and parental soothing strategies (less frequently taking the infant into the parent's bed, cuddling, or carrying the crying infant). Cry out was not associated with observational measures of maternal sensitivity or infant-maternal attachment., Conclusion: When used selectively and in response to the specific needs and characteristics of the infant, delayed responsiveness may reduce problematic behavior and does not harm the infant's socioemotional development.

Multiple studies have demonstrated the critical role of touch in human development and the impact of mother's tactile input for an infant's well-being. However, the literature lacks a detailed description of maternal touch behavior during play tasks. Our study examined maternal touch patterns during mother-infant interactions. We analyzed the touch behavior of 41 mothers while they interacted with their 12-month-old infants, in a structured social interaction, composed of three tasks: (1) free play with toys, (2) free play without toys, and (3) object play with a challenging toy. Every touch performed by the mother was segmented and categorized using the Ordinalized Mother Touch Scale (OMTS Category). In a 3 (Play Task) x 8 (OMTS Category) ANOVA, all effects were significant. We found that, in the free play without toys task, mother's use of touch is highly frequent (M = 71 %), when compared to object-oriented tasks. Mothers also adjusted to object-oriented task difficulty: they touched almost twice as much in the challenging play task as in the free play with toys (M = 26 % vs. M = 14 %). In addition, the different play tasks influenced the proportion of time mothers used particular categories of touch. In summary, our study found that mothers' touch behavior depends on the play task demands (non-object oriented vs. object oriented) changing in terms of frequency but also in the mother's use of different categories of touch., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: The mother-child relationship quality (MCRQ) may represent a transgenerational transmission mechanism of mental health problems. In this context, we examine the mother's recalled parental rearing behavior, actual attributions of her child's behavior, and her current psychopathology., Method: A clinical sample of mother-child dyads was assessed with the Questionnaire for the Assessment of Recalled Parental Rearing Behavior, the Parent Cognition Scale, and the Symptom Checklist at the Child Psychiatric Family Day Hospital for preschool children in Münster, Germany, at admission. MCRQ was assessed with the Parent-Infant Relationship Global Assessment Scale, a structured interview with the child (Strukturiertes Interview zur Erfassung der Kind-Eltern-Interaktion), and the Multiperspective Parent-Child Relationship Questionnaire., Results: Multiple regression analyses showed no direct association between the mother's recalled parental rearing behavior and any measure of the MCRQ. However, maternal dysfunctional attributions about her child's behavior and her actual psychopathology showed the expected negative associations with the multiperspective measures of MCRQ. The relationship quality assessments did not correlate significantly with each other., Conclusion: The divergent measures of MCRQ, which seem to assess different aspects, are a barrier to investigate the association between the mother's recalled parental rearing behavior and MCRQ. However, low MCRQ is associated with increased maternal psychopathology and maternal dysfunctional attributions on child behavior., (© 2020 The Authors. Infant Mental Health Journal published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.)

Background: The right of people with disability to be self-determining, to live a life of their choosing, is increasingly recognized and promoted. For adults with intellectual disability, support to enable self-determination may be required. This is often provided by family, yet little is understood about the experience of providing such support., Methods: An interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) of eight individual, semi-structured interviews with mothers was conducted, to understand the meaning given to their experience of supporting self-determination of their adult son or daughter with intellectual disability., Results: Three superordinate themes were identified: (a) support context; (b) continuum of support roles; and (c) mother's personal concerns., Conclusion: Mothers of adults with intellectual disability experience an ongoing sense of responsibility to balance competing rights and concerns as they support self-determination. This complex, interdependent relationship results in roles that may facilitate, guide, influence and at times restrict choice and control., (© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

The study of early parental competences is relevant because such competences are related to children's development; however, most studies have considered competences using a variable-centered approach in which each parental competence is examined in isolation. This paper approaches these competences using a person-centered approach, generating profiles that combine different competences in Chilean mothers assessed when their children were aged 12 months and again at 30 months. The aim of this study was to generate and compare these profiles and to analyze the associations of these profiles with children's language and socioemotional skills. Mother-child interactions in the contexts of storytelling and free play were videotaped at two different times. Ninety mother-child dyads were assessed using the Adult Sensitivity Scale (E.S.A.), the Evaluation of the Mentalization of Significant Caregivers, the Checklist of Observations Linked to Outcomes (PICCOLO), Bayley's language scale and the Functional Emotional Assessment Scale (FEAS). Profiles of mothers' behaviors were identified through person-centered within-group analyses of six aspects: sensitivity, mentalization, affection, responsiveness, encouragement, and teaching. Cluster analyses yielded three similar profiles for mothers at both ages: highly competent, average competent, and poorly competent. The mothers' profiles were related to maternal age, socioeconomic status (SES) and educational level, and the mothers improved their profiles at the 30-month assessment. The mothers' profiles were related to children's language and socioemotional outcomes at both ages. These results and their applicability to promotion and intervention programs are discussed., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest None., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Parenting very young children in the context of military service, deployment separations, and war-related trauma can be challenging for many families. Female active duty personnel represent one of the fastest growing segments of the military, and recent policy changes have led women to pursue serving in combat positions at much higher rates. While not much is known about service member mothers, some studies have shown that they experience significant symptoms of distress, depression, and anxiety during the deployment cycle, feelings of disconnection from family during reintegration, and higher rates of childhood trauma histories than their male counterparts. Service member mothers who experience the combined stressors of deployment separation, combat exposure, and adverse childhood experiences-a triple threat-may be at serious risk of posttraumatic stress and depressive symptomatology, which can negatively influence the quality and nature of their parenting and parent-child relationships. This case report describes the participation of a young single service member mother and her preschool-aged daughter in a home-based, reintegration program designed for military families with very young children (ages 0-5). The paper illustrates how this relationship-based, reflective parenting intervention was effective in increasing the mother's sense of competence in her parenting and strengthening the parent-child relationship., (© 2020 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.)

Stress is a common experience that can spillover into parenting, which in turn has important implications for child behavior. Parents' executive functioning (EF) may buffer the association between feelings of stress and parenting. However, using lower socioeconomic status (SES) and household chaos as indicators of stress, research has demonstrated inconsistent patterns with regard to this moderating role of EF. This study's first aim examined the moderating role of maternal EF on the associations between SES and household chaos, and harsh parenting. The second aim investigated the effects of experimentally induced stress on harsh parenting and whether maternal EF moderated these effects. A final sample of 101 mothers of 6 to 10-year-old children participated by completing measures of EF, household chaos, SES, and harsh parenting. Additionally, mothers were randomly assigned to either a stress group or a control group. Throughout the stress (or control) induction, mothers rated their harsh parenting in response to child misbehavior vignettes. Findings revealed that stronger EF reduced the association between household chaos and harsh parenting. There were no significant effects of SES or experimentally induced stress on harsh parenting, and EF was not a significant moderator for these stressors. These results highlight the buffering role of EF for more chronic stressors such as household chaos. SES and more acute stress, as manipulated by the TSST, at least in the current sample, may be less relevant.

Background: Sensitivity is defined as parents ability to perceive, react and respond to children signals. Having a history of childhood maltreatment changes the way adults perceive visual emotions. These perceptual characteristics could have important consequences on how these parents respond to their children., Objective: The current study examines how a history of childhood maltreatment moderates the relationship between maternal emotion recognition in child faces and sensitive behaviors toward their child during free-play and a structured task., Participants and Setting: Participants included 58 mothers and their children aged between 2 and 5 years., Methods: Mothers were exposed to a set of photographs of child faces showing morphed images of the six basic emotional expressions. Mother-child interactions were then coded for sensitive behaviors. Mothers' history of childhood maltreatment was assessed using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire., Results: Maltreatment severity was related to poorer abilities in emotion recognition. However, the association between emotion recognition and sensitive behavior was moderate by history of childhood maltreatment. For mothers exposed to a severe form of childhood maltreatment, a better emotion recognition was related to less sensitive behaviors toward the child, both during free-play and the structured task., Conclusion: This relationship is unique to these mothers and is inconsistent with Ainsworth's definition of sensitivity. These results have important implications as they suggest mothers with a history of severe maltreatment would need tailored interventions which take into account their particular reactions to children's emotions., (Crown Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The present study examined both between- and within-person effects of maternal sleep patterns on quality of mothering at bedtime during infants' first 6 months. Participants included 142 mothers who reported on their daily fall asleep and wake times across seven consecutive days with a daily sleep diary when infants were 1, 3, and 6 months old. At each age point, maternal emotional availability during one night of infant bedtime was observed and scored by trained observers who were blind to maternal sleep patterns. Multilevel modeling revealed that mothers with irregular sleep patterns, especially later average fall asleep times and greater average variability in sleep period across three age points, showed poorer parenting quality with infants at bedtime than other mothers. In addition, both between- and within-person effects of maternal sleep on bedtime parenting quality changed with infant age. Compared to mothers' individual averages across 1, 3, and 6 months, maternal short average sleep period, increased variability in sleep period, and later fall asleep times predicted poorer bedtime parenting quality at 6 months, but not at 1 or 3 months. Results emphasize the importance of maternal sleep regulation and sleep hygiene for maternal parenting quality, especially as infants get older. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The current study describes a promising new emotion coaching (EC) parenting intervention for survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) targeting emotion regulation (ER) and parent-child relationships. We discuss the development of an EC parenting intervention, outline its key elements, and use preliminary pilot data to illustrate how such a behavioral intervention can yield improvements in behavioral and physiological indices of ER (i.e., respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA]) and parent-child relationships and reductions in mental health difficulties in IPV-exposed mothers and their children. A 12-week skills-based EC parenting program was developed and administered in groups. Fifty mothers were assigned to intervention or waitlist groups. Physiological, observational, and questionnaire data were obtained pre- and postintervention. Because of the small sample size, effect sizes were examined for illustrative purposes of potential effects of the EC intervention. Relative to mothers in waitlist group, mothers in the intervention group showed (a) improvements in emotion awareness and coaching, (b) increases in ER as assessed by baseline RSA, (c) increased use of validation and decreased use of sermonizing/lecturing/scolding during parent-child interaction, and (d) increased sense of parenting competence. Relative to children of mothers in the waitlist group, children of mothers in the intervention group showed (a) increases in ER as measured by parent-report and baseline RSA, (b) decreases in negativity during parent-child interaction, and (c) decreases in depressive symptoms. Discussion highlights potential usefulness of an EC parenting intervention for populations at risk for ER and parenting difficulties. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Neonatal risk factors have been associated with atypical development in various areas of social communication, including joint attention (JA), but little is known about factors in the early caregiving environment that can modify the negative implications of neonatal risk. The present study examines the links between neonatal risk and infants' JA, while considering the mediating role of maternal sensitive-responsiveness and the moderating roles of stressful contexts. One hundred and eighty-two families with infants (50% female) born in a wide range of gestational ages and birthweights participated in the study. Neonatal risk was assessed shortly after birth using three indicators: birthweight, gestational age, and degree of medical risk. At age 6 months, maternal sensitive-responsiveness to infants' foci of attention was rated and maternal anxiety and household chaos were measured. Infants' JA behaviors were assessed at age 12 months. A moderated-mediation model revealed that maternal anxiety symptoms and household chaos moderated the links between neonatal risk, maternal sensitive-responsiveness, and infants' responding to JA. Specifically, neonatal risk was related to less maternal sensitive-responsiveness only when maternal anxiety symptoms were above average levels, but not when anxiety symptoms were low. Moreover, maternal sensitive-responsiveness was positively related to infants' responding to JA behaviors when household chaos was low but not when it was high. These findings highlight the complex nature of the links between infants' early biological risk and caregiving environments in the development of social communication skills.

Background: Non-invasive imaging techniques, such as fNIRS, allow us to shed light on the neural correlates of infant's social-emotional development within the context of parent-infant interaction. On a behavioral level, numerous studies have investigated parent-infant interaction employing the still-face paradigm and found that the primary caregiver(s), often the mother, is an important coregulator of the infant's physiological and behavioral stress response. However, limited information is available on how the infant's brain reacts to the maternal cues during real-life interaction., Methods: Therefore, the main aim of the current study was to design a fNIRS paradigm to study live mother-infant interaction and to explore the neural correlates of infant affect regulation during real-life dyadic interaction. To this end, a modified still-face paradigm was designed, which consists of live face-to-face mother-infant, and stranger-infant, interaction episodes, including stressful, "still-face" and non-stressful, "happy-face" interaction blocks, combined with infant fNIRS imaging., Results: Hemodynamic brain responses were collected in n = 10 (6 females, mean age 230.2 ± 17.5 days), typically developing infants using the Hitachi ETG-4000 continuous-wave system (22 channels spanning the frontal cortex; 10 Hz system sampling frequency). Infants with usable data (n = 7) showed negative activations, indicated by a decrease in oxygenated hemoglobin, over the middle frontal gyrus in response to happy-face (reunion) interaction with their mothers compared to a female stranger; suggesting deactivation of brain regions associated with affect regulation. We also explored correlations between infant brain responses to maternal interaction and infant characteristics (temperament) as well as experiential/environmental factors (mothers' self-reported depression symptoms)., Conclusions: Although the current results are very preliminary, they overall suggest that live design in infant populations is doable and offers unique opportunities to study the neural mechanisms underlying early caregiver(s)-child interaction in a more naturalistic context. Restrictions, and implications, of the methodology are critically discussed., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no competing financial interest and no other potential conflicts of interest to disclose., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

It is unclear how individual differences in parenting and brain development interact to influence adolescent mental health outcomes. This study examined interactions between structural brain development and observed maternal parenting behavior in the prediction of adolescent depressive symptoms and psychological well-being. Whether findings supported diathesis-stress or differential susceptibility frameworks was tested. Participants completed observed interactions with their mothers during early adolescence (age 13), and the frequency of positive and aggressive maternal behavior were coded. Adolescents also completed structural magnetic resonance imaging scans at three time points: mean ages 13, 17, and 19. Regression models analyzed interactions between maternal behavior and longitudinal brain development in the prediction of late adolescent (age 19) outcomes. Indices designed to distinguish between diathesis-stress and differential susceptibility effects were employed. Results supported differential susceptibility: less thinning of frontal regions was associated with higher well-being in the context of low levels of aggressive maternal behavior, and lower well-being in the context of high levels of aggressive maternal behavior. Findings suggest that reduced frontal cortical thinning during adolescence may underlie increased sensitivity to maternal aggressive behavior for better and worse and highlight the importance of investigating biological vulnerability versus susceptibility.

Consistency in parenting infants has positive developmental outcomes. Yet, the role of socioeconomic status (SES) in consistency of maternal behaviors is not well understood. We investigated individual-order continuity of maternal smile and laughter and positive vocalization from 6 to 12 months of age in 82 mother-infant dyads. Overall, individual differences in maternal smile and laughter, and positive vocalization were consistent across time. A multidimensional measure of SES moderated the association of maternal smile and laughter from 6 to 12 months, such that infants from lower SES families were vulnerable to unpredictable parenting - experiencing a lack of consistency in maternal smiles and laughter., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Consistency in the order of individuals in a group across short periods of time-reliability-is both important developmentally and meaningful psychologically. For example, documenting the reliabilities of infant behaviors and maternal parenting practices elucidates the nature and structure of early development. In this prospective short-term longitudinal study (Ns = 51 5-month infants and their mothers), we examined reliabilities of individual variation in multiple infant behaviors (physical development, social interaction, exploration, nondistress vocalization, and distress communication) and maternal parenting practices (nurturing, encouragement of motor growth, social exchange, didactic interaction, provision of the material environment, and speech to infant). Medium to large effect size reliabilities characterize infant behaviors and maternal parenting practices, but both betray substantial amounts of unshared variance. Established reliability is essential to the application of these measures in infancy studies, it is central to replication, and it is a limiting factor in predictive validity., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Distorted maternal representations (DMRs)-mother's ideas, understanding, and feelings about the infant-shape early interaction and the emerging relationship. Distorted interactions reportedly affect infant attachment and socioemotional development and may be associated with maternal early adversity and trauma. Limited measures are available that could be used as screening tools of DMRs. The aims of this study were to (a) describe the development of the Mother-Infant Relationship Scale (MIRS) and (b) to evaluate its psychometric properties. The development and validation of the MIRS closely followed standard guidelines for the development of psychometric tests. Psychometric properties were examined across two samples: 78 adult psychiatric patients with features of borderline personality and 86 individuals from a nonclinical sample (N = 164). The scale demonstrated excellent internal consistency (Cronbach's α = .91) for the clinical sample and adequate internal consistency (.78) for the nonclinical sample, excellent test-retest reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient = .81), and good concurrent validity with an observational (Pearson's correlation coefficients = -.35 to -.54) and a representational measure (.53). Factor analysis revealed three components: DMRs specific to (a) maternal hostility/rejection of the infant, (b) issues about parenting/attachment, and (c) anxiety/helplessness about infant care. Findings suggest that the MIRS is a reliable and valid screening tool of DMRs. Potential uses in clinical and research settings are discussed., (© 2019 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.)

Feldman et al. (Human Development, 36, 327-342, 1993) called for a new kind of psychology, a cultural cognitive developmental psychology. We critically consider their initial studies to discuss the scope of their program. In the spirit of this program we explore the development of scaffolding of narrative emotion regulation in adolescence. We present two co-narrations of sad events between mothers and their 12- and 18-year-old offspring to exemplify these mothers' age-sensitive strategies to scaffold adolescents' narrative emotion regulation. We identified three kinds of narrative arguments which mothers used for scaffolding and which are apparently acquired only in the course of adolescence: Embedding events in extended temporal, biographical contexts, relating events and reactions to individuals' enduring personalities, and re-appraising events by including more others', external, and hypothetical perspectives. They confirm developmental observations made by Feldman et al. (Human Development, 36, 327-342, 1993) and demonstrate their utility in the context of the development of emotion regulation.

Introduction : Our aim was to describe feasibility and outcomes of skin-to-skin care (SSC) that began during cesarean surgery and continued, uninterrupted, for about 5 hours. We described maternal/newborn measures of physiologic stability and stress; maternal measures of comfort; maternal satisfaction with surgery and SSC; and exclusive breast milk feeding at discharge. Materials and Methods: We used a quasiexperimental, time-interrupted design and randomly assigned women to receive SSC that began during surgery (Group 1, intervention; n  = 20) or after surgery, before transfer to recovery (Group 2, standard care; n  = 20). We analyzed differences across time and for five observations: before transfer to the operating room (OR); in the OR, about 20 minutes after birth; in the recovery room, about 1 hour after admission; in the New Family Center (NFC), about 1 hour after admission; and in the NFC, about 2 hours after admission. Results: Group 1 began SSC an average of 0.89 minutes after birth and continued an average of 300 minutes and Group 2 began an average of 46 minutes after birth and continued an average of 126 minutes. Women who began SSC during surgery were more satisfied with the experience ( p  = 0.015) and had lower levels of salivary cortisol across time ( p  = 0.003). We found no negative effects on maternal or newborn measures of physiologic stability and no difference in exclusive breast milk feeding rates at discharge. Conclusion: Immediate and uninterrupted SSC during medically uncomplicated cesarean surgery is a feasible, low-cost intervention that can safely begin during surgery and continue, uninterrupted, for extended durations.

Mothers' sensitive responses to their infants have evolutionary importance and are likely hardwired into the maternal brain. Mood disorders are associated with aberrant neural processing of emotion in regions overlapping with 'maternal sensitivity networks' which could compromise maternal processing of infant signals. This systematic review aimed to integrate findings from studies of neural responses to infant stimuli in healthy mothers and in mothers with mood disorders. We included original studies using functional brain imaging and electrophysiological techniques. The databases psycINFO and PubMed were searched for eligible articles until January 2019. Twenty-seven studies met the inclusion criteria, none of which investigated mothers with bipolar disorder or remitted unipolar disorder. Studies were characterized by large methodological heterogeneity. The most consistent findings were that healthy mothers exhibit stronger and faster neural responses to infant stimuli than non-mothers in key emotional processing regions including the amygdala, insula and orbitofrontal cortex, which is accentuated for own infants. Motherswith acute depression display blunted neural responses within these regions which correlates with greater depression severity., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Efficient parental care is indispensable for survival of the mammalian offspring, and therefore both parents and offspring cooperate to achieve the best performance. For example, when parents transport altricial offspring, the offspring immediately respond by reducing its cry and movement in both human infants and rodent pups. This coordinated set of central, motor and cardiac responses is designated as the Transport Response (TR) and is shown to facilitate maternal carrying in rodents. The present study aims to investigate the core behavioural characteristics of mother-infant interaction, and to investigate the mechanisms underlying the mother-pup cooperation using pharmacological and genetic manipulations (i.e. Oprm1-/). Along with the clear developmental changes of the pups' immobility and posture during maternal carrying as previously reported, there were also adaptations in maternal strategies, particularly in positioning of foothold and oral grasp over the pup's body, with the pups' age and pup's behaviour. Tree-based models elucidated that both of these maternal variables as well as percentage of pups' struggle predict the time required for pup retrieval from a cup. When the sensory-motor control in pups was disturbed by pharmacological or genetic manipulations, these core behaviours were inefficiently performed and impede maternal retrieval. Mother-infant mutual fit is a complex construct where several intermingled mechanisms are involved. Thus mothers and infants, when interacting, should be considered together as one whole system in which any change in one side or the other, affects the output of the whole dyad. The outcome of the interaction relays on a specific dynamic pattern of infant and maternal behaviours, which mutually change and adapt to fit each other's needs. Key features to reach a successful outcome of the interaction were the maternal retrieving strategy and infants' Transport Response behaviour., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Sociocultural theories of development privilege the role of parent-child conversation as a critical interpersonal context for cognitive and socioemotional development. Research on maternal reminiscing suggests that mothers differ on the elaborative nature of their reminiscing style. Individual differences in maternal elaborative style are thought to contribute to children's cognitive development in at least 3 critical areas: (a) memory; (b) language; and (c) theory of mind (ToM). Further, mothers are thought to be more elaborative with daughters than sons. After more than 30 years of research on maternal reminiscing, there has yet to be a quantitative summary of the literature. As such, we conducted a series of meta-analyses to summarize the effect sizes present in the literature, focusing on the 3 domains listed above as well as the potential impact of child gender on maternal elaborative style. The mean age range for children was set to include 30-60 months; roughly the developmental onset of autobiographical memory. Given these criteria, k = 38 studies (51 independent samples) with N = 2,492 mother-child dyads were included in this meta-analysis. Results indicated that maternal elaborative style did not differ by child gender. However, elaboration was positively associated with child memory, child language ability, and ToM. Ethnicity significantly moderated maternal elaborations by child gender, such that samples with majority non-Caucasian mothers elaborated more with daughters than sons. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Mothers with a substance use disorder (SUD) have been found to exhibit heightened experience of stress and deficits in executive functioning (EF) and in parental reflective functioning (PRF). Although experiences of stress, EF and PRF are important for caregiving capacities; no studies have explored associations between the phenomena in mothers with SUD. This study aimed to examine the association between EF (working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility) and different forms of stress (parental stress, general life stress, and psychological distress) in 43 mothers with SUD with infants. We further aimed to investigate whether PRF had a mediating function between EF and the experience of stress. The mothers completed self-report questionnaires regarding experiences of different types of stress, and we also used neuropsychological tests to assess EF and a semistructured interview to assess PRF. Results identified problems in EF were associated with higher parental stress and psychological distress but not with general life stress. Cognitive flexibility contributed uniquely to variance in parental stress, whereas working memory was a unique contributor to variance in psychological distress. PRF had a mediating function between EF and parental stress and between EF and psychological distress. Findings highlight the importance of considering individual differences in PRF when targeting EF in interventions trying to reduce the experience of parental stress and psychological distress in mothers with SUD., (© 2019 The Authors Stress and Health Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)