Search

Regular repair of normative mother-toddler conflict is required for relational health; yet, we still need improved delineation of regulation strategies that can promote child cooperation. Contemporary conceptualizations of positive parenting propose that structure and autonomy support each facilitate children's optimal engagement; however, toddler studies rarely address their joint impact and conditional moderation. This observational study examined both dimensions in predicting cooperation among 106 U.S. 30-month-olds and their primarily European-American mothers during a demanding request situation. We also assessed mutuality, an indicator of mother-child relationship quality, from two situations with minimized power differentials to explore whether it moderated associations. Regression analyses confirmed the unique and additive impact of both maternal behavioral dimensions in predicting toddler cooperation and also an interaction effect such that the positive association between maternal autonomy support and toddlers' level of cooperation was accentuated depending on the dyads' mutuality. Results suggest that maternal structure and autonomy support may serve as effective approaches for enlisting or maintaining child cooperation during hierarchical negotiations, and that suboptimal relationship mutuality magnifies toddlers' responses to maternal levels of autonomy support. Findings are likely relevant to parenting programs that advance mother-child relational health during the transition from infancy to early childhood., (© 2024 The Author(s). Infant Mental Health Journal published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.)

Poor maternal diet and psychosocial stress represent two environmental factors that can significantly impact maternal health during pregnancy. While various mouse models have been developed to study the relationship between maternal and offspring health and behaviour, few incorporate multiple sources of stress that mirror the complexity of human experiences. Maternal high-fat diet (HF) models in rodents are well-established, whereas use of psychosocial stress interventions in female mice are still emerging. The social instability stress (SIS) paradigm, serves as a chronic and unpredictable form of social stress. To evaluate the combined effects of a poor maternal diet and intermittent social stress on maternal health and behaviour, we developed a novel maternal stress model using adult female C57Bl/6 mice. We observed that all HF+ mice demonstrated rapid weight gain, elevated fasting blood glucose levels and impaired glucose tolerance independent of the presence (+) or absence (-) of SIS. Behavioural testing output revealed anxiety-like behaviours remained similar across all groups prior to pregnancy. However, integrated anxiety z-scores revealed a mixed anxious profile amongst HF+/SIS+ females prior to pregnancy. HF+/SIS+ females also did not show reduced plasma ACTH and corticosterone levels that were observed in our other HF+ and HF- stress groups after SIS exposure. Further, HF+/SIS+ females demonstrated significant postpartum maternal neglect, resulting in fewer numbers of live offspring. These findings suggest that prolonged maternal HF diet consumption, coupled with previous exposure to SIS, places a significant burden on the maternal stress response system, resulting in reduced parental investment and negative postpartum behaviour towards offspring., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest None., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

We examined the extent to which dynamic coupling of (a) maternal sensitivity and (b) children's responsive and assertive behaviors toward mothers during a semistructured play session predicts children's responsive and assertive behavior toward an unfamiliar peer at 39 months and a close friend at 58 and 66 months. Maternal and child behaviors were rated in 30-s epochs during play when children were 32 months old (Time 1; N = 128; 66 girls). Children were rated on their responsiveness and assertiveness toward an unfamiliar peer in the early preschool years (Time 2) and toward a friend in the late preschool years (Time 3). Residual dynamic structural equation models showed that stronger positive contemporaneous coupling of maternal sensitivity and children's responsiveness in a given 30-s epoch of the play session predicted greater observed responsiveness toward a friend in the late preschool years, after controlling for mean levels of maternal sensitivity and child responsiveness. On the other hand, positive contemporaneous coupling of maternal sensitivity and child assertiveness predicted children's higher levels of observed assertiveness toward an unfamiliar peer in the early preschool years, after controlling for mean levels of maternal sensitivity and child assertiveness. Results suggest that the dynamic coupling of specific positive behaviors during mother-child interaction may provide children with social scripts to draw on in diverse peer contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Crying is a typical infant behavior that activates parental caregiving behaviors, acting as "human alarms" important for the infant's survival. When living under war-related threat, the auditory system may be sensitized given its importance for survival, potentially impacting maternal cry processing. Children living in armed-conflict zones are at increased risk for behavior problems, which may relate to both direct exposure and indirect effects through their parents' perceptions and behaviors. This hypothesis was examined in a sample of mothers and their first-born children (aged 10-45 months) living in the Gaza vicinity area in Israel, chronically exposed to missile alarms (high-exposure; n = 45), and a comparison group (low-exposure; n = 86). Group differences in child behavior problems and maternal perceptions of and responsiveness to cry were investigated. A moderated indirect-effect of maternal cry perceptions on child behavior problems via maternal responsiveness to cry was examined. In the high-exposure group, children had more externalizing problems and mothers rated cries as more aversive. Maternal cry perception was indirectly related to child behavior problems via responsiveness to cry only in the high-exposure group: higher perceptions of cry as aversive or the child as distressed were related to faster responding to crying, and faster cry responsiveness was linked with fewer behavior problems. Results suggest that in armed-conflict zones with auditory warning signals, the parental caring system may be easily activated by cries due to the strong association between alarms and threat. Furthermore, children may need their mothers to react faster when feeling distressed, possibly because of the surrounding threat., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Some conceptualizations of attachment imply an instinctual behavior that occurs naturally. Mothers who endorse this view are at greater risk for psychological stress, depression, and harsh parenting styles if they do not feel an immediate bond with their infant postpartum. The purpose of this study is to explore actual experiences of attachment from the perspective of young mothers (N = 75, M age  = 19.45 years) and based on these findings the extent to which there is empirical support for a maternal instinct. Mothers were interviewed at home three times (2 weeks, four months, and seven months postpartum), and interviews were thematically analyzed using an open coding method. Three broad themes and six sub-themes emerged: 1) experiences with the immediacy of attachment at birth are diverse (traumatic birth experience, sense of a maternal identity), 2) contextual factors on the bonding experience (physical touch-based caretaking, parenting stress and depression), and 3) time spent parenting influences attachment (reciprocity, parental confidence/knowledge). In conclusion, we could not find empirical evidence to support an innate maternal instinct. Despite diverse experiences with felt attachment at birth, all mothers perceived that the mother-infant connection was influenced by contextual factors after birth and was strengthened over time with more care-taking experience. This suggests that mothers likely developed a "maternal instinct" through repetitive interaction with their infant as the primary caretaker rather than a genetic predisposition to be superior nurturing parents., (Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

A new observational measure of a culturally salient, supportive African American parenting style, Active Direction, was developed. Ratings were compared to standard qualitative ratings and across two ethnic groups. Active Direction represents the provision of structure to interactions in the form of corrective direction with clear and concise feedback that is assessed for supportiveness rather than simple content or tone. The 7-point rating item was examined in observations of African American (n = 172) and Hispanic American (n = 196) mother-child interactions collected at age 2.5 years in families from low-income households. Ratings were compared and associations to previously reported ratings of the interactions were examined. Active Direction was often observed among the African American mothers (81%) but rarely observed among the Hispanic mothers (16%), with a large effect size difference, supporting the hypothesis that Active Direction may represent a culturally specific approach to parenting for African American parents. Maternal behavior correlations of Active Direction with cognitive stimulation, intrusiveness, scaffolding, and calm authority and with child affiliative obedience and dyadic routines and rituals were significantly higher and detachment significantly lower in the African American compared to the Hispanic sample. The new measure of Active Direction, centered around culturally salient values and differences in both historical and lived experiences, addresses characteristics of parenting in African American families that are supportive of their children's development and provides a fruitful direction for future research., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: The aim of this qualitative study was to examine experiences and meanings of maternal ambivalence in first-time mothers with young children., Background: In contrast with normative expectations surrounding contemporary motherhood, there is growing recognition that becoming and being a mother involves ambivalent feelings, and that these feelings are normal and have positive psychological consequences. Yet, little attention has been paid to women's subjective experiences of maternal ambivalence, and capacity to acknowledge and manage ambivalent feelings., Methods: Eleven semi-structured online interviews, with first-time mothers, were conducted and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) methodology., Results: Two group experiential themes were identified: Crossing boundaries of acceptable mothering feelings and Mothering from a place of 'enough'. Ambivalent mothering feelings challenged participants' expectations about motherhood and themselves as mothers, producing anxiety, self-doubt and feelings of failure. Distress accompanying maternal ambivalence was especially acute when participants perceived their feelings to be unacceptable. Viewing conflicting feelings with compassion, however, helped participants to cope with their diverse and fluctuating emotional mothering experiences, allowing them to mother with a greater sense of equanimity, agency and competence., Conclusion: The study's findings indicate the potential benefits of providing information about the emotional turbulence of early motherhood as part of routine maternity care, as well as the potential value of offering parenting interventions that promote self-compassion to mothers struggling to manage feelings of ambivalence.

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).

Triadic interactions, wherein infants coordinate attention between caregivers and objects of shared focus, are believed to facilitate infant learning, and emerge around 9-12 months of age (Carpenter et al., 1998). Sensorimotor decoupling, wherein infants look at one percept while manipulating another, or use each hand for different actions, was hypothesized (de Barbaro et al., 2016) to contribute to triadic skills by allowing infants to smoothly shift attention between objects and social partners. We explored the development of Hand-Hand (H-H) and Gaze-Hand (G-H) decoupling in 38 infants at 4, 6, and 9 months. We also tested contingencies between maternal behaviors and infant decoupling: i.e., whether decoupling events followed maternal object-directed actions. Both overall and contingent infant decoupling increased from 4 to 9 months. Decoupling rates (both G-H and H-H) predicted variance in infants' fine and gross motor scores. Contingent G-H decoupling at 6 months predicted BSID-III communication scores at 18 months. Thus the development of infant sensorimotor skills, including decoupling, allows infants to smoothly shift attention and participate in triadic interactions., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Infants' hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis responses to acute stressors are theorized to be shaped by parents' sensitive responsiveness to infants' cues. The strength and direction of the association between maternal sensitivity and infants' HPA responses may depend on the context in which maternal sensitivity is observed and on broader environmental sources of stress and support. In this preregistered study, we used data from 105 mothers and their 7-month-old infants to examine whether two empirically identified forms of contextual stress-poor maternal psychosocial wellbeing and family socioeconomic hardship-moderate the association between maternal sensitivity and infants' cortisol responses to the Still-Face Paradigm (SFP). Results indicated that maternal sensitivity during the free play and family socioeconomic hardship interacted to predict infants' cortisol responses to the SFP. Specifically, maternal sensitivity during this non-distressing interaction was negatively associated with cortisol responses only among infants whose mothers were experiencing relatively high socioeconomic hardship. Exploratory analyses revealed that poor maternal psychosocial wellbeing was positively associated with overall infant cortisol production during the SFP. Altogether, these findings suggest that experiences within early parent-infant attachment relationships and sources of contextual stress work together to shape infant HPA axis activity., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest My coauthors (Bailey Speck, Elisabeth Conradt, and K. Lee Raby) and I do not have any conflicts of interests that might be interpreted as influencing the research, and APA ethical standards were followed in the conduct of the study., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: Breastfeeding is a parenting practice that combines close intimate contact with the opportunity to be sensitive and responsive to the infant, and may have direct and indirect relations with infant attachment. However, researchers have produced inconsistent findings, suggesting there may be other mechanisms involved. Coparenting may play a significant role, as it has been consistently associated with mother-infant relationships., Research Aims: The aims of this study were to examine: (1) whether breastfeeding would be directly associated with infant-mother attachment; (2) whether this association was also indirect, through mothers' quality of caregiving; and (3) whether partners' coparenting support moderates breastfeeding's indirect association with attachment., Methods: This was a prospective, longitudinal study that drew data from a larger NIH-funded study on sleep and family relationships (R01HD052809). Mothers reported on their feeding practices and coparenting relationships. Independent observations were used to assess mothers' emotional availability toward infants. A separate team of observers assessed infant-mother attachment., Results: Exclusive breastfeeding during the first 6 months, and longer duration of any breastfeeding across the 1st year, were directly associated with more secure infant-mother attachment. These associations were also indirect, through maternal emotional availability. Coparenting was a significant moderator, such that the influence of longer breastfeeding duration on improved emotional availability, and, in turn, on more secure attachment, was significant only for mothers who perceived coparenting quality to be low., Conclusion: Findings highlighted the importance of breastfeeding on both the quality of mothering and infant attachment, but also emphasized that coparenting support may be particularly important for mothers who are unable to breastfeed., Competing Interests: Disclosures and Conflicts of InterestThe authors declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Christine Youngwon Kim is a PhD student, Nicole P. Smith was an undergraduate student, and Douglas M. Teti was the advisor to both at the time this article was written.

The extent to which mother and infant sleep predict maternal sensitivity as (a) main effects and (b) moderate the association between social cognition about infant crying (i.e., cry processing) and maternal sensitivity was examined in a sample of 299 mother-infant dyads (43% of mothers non-White; 50.5% of infants female). Infant- and mother-oriented cry processing were assessed prenatally using a video recall procedure and mothers self-reported demographics and characteristics reflecting emotional risk. When infants were 2 months old, mothers reported their depressive symptoms and mother and infant sleep. Maternal sensitivity and infant negative mood were observed during free play and the still face. There were no main effects of mother or infant sleep on maternal sensitivity over and above covariates. However, infant total sleep duration across night and day and mother sleep disturbance moderated the effect of mother-oriented cry processing on sensitivity. Specifically, mother-oriented cry processing was associated with lower maternal sensitivity only among mothers whose infants had lower sleep duration and who reported more sleep disturbances. Moderating effects were not apparent for infant night wakings or time awake or mothers' total sleep problems. Constrained opportunities for sleep or respite across the entire day and the totality of mothers' nighttime sleep disturbances, not just those specific to infants' night wakings, undermine maternal sensitivity by exacerbating mothers' preexisting tendency to have self-focused and negative reactions to infant distress. The efficacy of interventions designed to facilitate maternal sensitivity and infant adjustment may be enhanced by adding targeted foci on maternal and infant sleep. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Background: In this study, we aimed to design a mother-report inventory to comprehensively assess mother-child interaction in the 0-3 age range, focusing on maternal and child interaction behavior and mutual attunement., Methods: Our research involved three stages, with 1061 mothers and their 0-3-year-old children: 45 in the pilot study, 498 in exploratory factor analysis and latent profile analysis, and 518 in confirmatory factor analysis., Findings: The Mother-Child Interaction Inventory emerged as a valid and reliable measurement tool, comprising three distinct scales: 1) Maternal Interaction Behavior Questionnaire with sensitive structuring, hostility, and intrusiveness subscales; 2) Child Interaction Behavior Questionnaire with emotional-behavioral involvement and child characteristics; and 3) Mutual Attunement Questionnaire with reciprocity and problem-solving subscales. Latent profile analysis revealed four mother-child interaction profiles, indicating different characteristics in maternal and child interaction behavior and mutual attunement, categorized as "Excellent interaction quality," "Average interaction quality 1", "Average interaction quality 2," and "Poor interaction quality.", Discussion: The study underscores the significance of maternal and child interaction behavior and mutual attunement in determining the quality of mother-child interaction. The mother-report The Mother-Child Interaction Inventory is a functional measurement tool to evaluate interaction separately and holistically, unveiling mother-child interaction profiles in the Turkish context., Practice Implications: The practical implications of this research are significant for health professionals, educators, and stakeholders working with children and families. The Mother-Child Interaction Inventory provides a valuable tool for assessing interaction dynamics, offering insights that can be directly applied to improve mother-child interaction., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest concerning this article's research, authorship, and/or publication., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Facial features of immature individuals play a pivotal role in eliciting caretaking behaviors in humans. It has been posited that non-human animals share particular infantile facial features with humans, which can elicit caregivers' attention and caretaking behaviors. Nevertheless, the empirical examination of this hypothesis is extremely limited. In this study, we investigated infantile facial features in Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata), their developmental processes, and their correlation with caretaking and infant behaviors, based on 470 facial photographs from one free-ranging group. We measured the size of facial parts and evaluated these features using non-contact procedures with the animals. The results indicated that, although some partial species differences were observed, the infantile facial features in Japanese macaques were broadly consistent with those previously observed in humans and great apes. Furthermore, half of the infant subjects displayed non-linear developmental trajectories of infantile faces, similar to those suggested in humans. However, unlike previous studies in humans, infantile faces were not significantly associated with maternal or non-maternal caretaking behaviors, nor were their developmental changes correlated with infant behavioral development. These findings indicate that while many aspects of infantile facial features are shared among particular primates, humans may have evolved a uniquely elevated preference for selecting such features among the primate lineage., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Minami, Furuichi. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

This study examined the stability of Attachment Script Assessment (ASA) deactivation, hyperactivation, and anomalous content and their significance for parenting outcomes in mothers ( M age = 31 years; 78% White/European American) and 6-month-old infants. Comparable to ASA secure base script knowledge (SBSK), mothers' ASA deactivation, hyperactivation, and anomalous content were significantly, moderately stable over two years ( r 's = .40 - .43). Mothers' ASA hyperactivation and anomalous content were associated with greater maternal intrusiveness, whereas ASA deactivation was associated with greater detachment and less intrusiveness. Only ASA anomalous content was associated with lower maternal sensitivity. Mothers' ASA deactivation was associated with less dynamic change in respiratory sinus arrhythmia during the Still-Face Procedure-reflective of limited mobilization of physiological resources to support responding to infants. Findings support the validity of ASA deactivation, hyperactivation, and anomalous content scripts, and demonstrate their utility in examining adult attachment stability and predictive significance for parent-child outcomes.

Research has indicated that maternal anxiety does have an effect on infant temperament. Therefore, it is important to study the variables that could play a role in this relationship. In this study, we propose that mindful parenting could act as a mediator in this relationship. Thus, the main objective was to evaluate the relationship between maternal anxiety and child temperament (i.e., negative affectivity, surgency, and effortful control) through the mindful parenting of mothers. Mothers (N = 225) self-reported their anxiety, mindful parenting use, and the temperament of their old infants (aged 4-18 months). First, the reliability and validity results showed that the infant version of the Interpersonal Mindful Parenting questionnaire was a good tool for the assessment of mindful parenting among parents with infants. The five-factor structure of the questionnaire was confirmed; it involved self-regulation in the parenting relationship, listening with full attention, emotional awareness of the child, compassion for the child, and non-judgmental acceptance of parenting behavior. Correlational analyses showed that maternal anxiety was related to negative affectivity and effortful control in infants. Furthermore, mediational analyses indicated that the relation between maternal anxiety and infant negative affectivity was mediated by self-regulation in parenting and the emotional awareness of the child. In addition, the relation between maternal anxiety and infant effortful control was mediated by compassion for the child and listening with full attention. These results contribute to knowledge about the relation between maternal anxiety and child temperament, which may increase the risk of psychological symptoms. The results of this study suggest that promoting mindful parenting skills may be beneficial for affectivity and effortful control in infants., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest None., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Previous studies underscore the importance of social interactions for child language development-particularly interactions characterized by maternal sensitivity, infant-directed speech (IDS), and conversational turn-taking (CT) in one-on-one contexts. Although infants engage in such interactions from the third month after birth, the prospective link between speech input and maternal sensitivity in the first half year of life and later language development has been understudied. We hypothesized that social interactions embodying maternal sensitivity, IDS and CTs in the first 3 months of life, are significantly associated with later language development and tested this using a longitudinal design. Using a sample of 40 3-month-old infants, we assessed maternal sensitivity during a structured mother-infant one-on-one (1:1) interaction based on a well-validated scoring system (the Coding Interactive Behavior system). Language input (IDS, CT) was assessed during naturally occurring interactions at home using the Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA) system. Language outcome measures were obtained from 18 to 30 months of age using the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory. Three novel findings emerged. First, maternal sensitivity at 3 months was significantly associated with infants' productive language scores at 18, 21, 24, 27, and 30 months of age. Second, LENA-recorded IDS during mother-infant 1:1 interaction in the home environment at 3 months of age was positively correlated with productive language scores at 24, 27, and 30 months of age. Third, mother-infant CTs during 1:1 interaction was significantly associated with infants' productive language scores at 27 and 30 months of age. We propose that infants' social attention to speech during this early period-enhanced by sensitive maternal one-on-one interactions and IDS-are potent factors in advancing language development., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: The quality of mother-infant interactions is crucial for child development. Studies show that breastfeeding contributes to maternal sensitivity and the development of a positive mother-infant bond. Maternal mental health difficulties negatively impact both maternal sensitivity and breastfeeding. Thus, it is unclear whether breastfeeding contributes to the quality of mother-infant interactions independent from mental health. The purpose of this study is to examine the contribution of exclusive breastfeeding at 3 months postpartum to the quality of the mother-infant relationship at 6 months postpartum, controlling for maternal mental health in a community sample of mothers in Chile., Materials and Method: Eighty women completed self-report measures of mental health and breastfeeding during the third trimester of pregnancy and 3 and 6 months postpartum. At 6 months after childbirth, the mother-infant interaction was assessed by coding a free-play session between mothers and infants. Logistic regression analysis was used to examine the contribution of breastfeeding practices and mental health to the quality of mother-infant interactions., Results: Exclusive breastfeeding at 3 months postpartum increased the likelihood of displaying positive mother-infant interactions controlling for maternal mental health. Mothers who continued to breastfeed at 6 months postpartum reported less symptoms of antenatal depression and anxiety and higher levels of sensitivity and cooperation towards their infants., Conclusion: Breastfeeding contributes to maternal sensitivity and cooperation even when controlling for maternal mental health. Implications for health practitioners and limitations due to the sample characteristics are discussed., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Examining the impact of maternal borderline personality disorder (BPD) on parent-child interactions could elucidate pathways of intergenerational risk and inform intervention. The current study used an expanded version of the Observing Mediational Interactions to investigate (a) associations between maternal BPD symptom severity and mediational parenting behaviors during conflict discussions with clinically referred early adolescent offspring ( N = 56, age = 10-15, 54% female) and their mothers, and (b) the potential moderating role of early adolescent BPD symptom severity in those associations. Consistent with hypotheses, mothers with higher levels of BPD symptom severity engaged in fewer positive emotional/attachment-based behaviors and more negative (i.e., invalidating, controlling, coercive, or insensitive) parenting behaviors. Only parent-reported, but not self-reported, adolescent BPD severity moderated these associations; maternal BPD severity was significantly associated only with negative parenting in dyads with low-to-moderate levels of parent-reported adolescent BPD severity. We discuss implications including targeting attachment-based and negative parenting behaviors in intervention.

Previous research indicates that child temperament and maternal behaviors are related to internalizing behaviors in children. We assessed whether maternal intrusiveness (MI) observed at 10-months would moderate the impact of temperamental fear and the impact of inhibitory control (IC) at 24 months on anxiety problems at 36 months. A mother-child interaction task was coded for MI. Behavioral tasks were given to assess children's IC. Parents completed questionnaires about their children's temperamental fear and anxiety problems. Results showed that greater temperamental fear reported at 24 months predicted greater anxiety problems reported at 36 months, regardless of MI levels. Lower levels of IC at 24 months predicted more anxiety problems reported at 36 months when children experienced greater MI. These findings illustrate the importance of examining both intrinsic and extrinsic factors, independently and interactively, that contribute to children's anxiety problems in toddlerhood., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: This study examined the intra- and inter-rater reliability of the Recorded Interaction Task (RIT); a novel tool to assess mother-infant bonding via observational methods., Background: Mother-infant bonding describes the reciprocal early emotional connection between mother and infant. Whilst various tools exist to assess mother-infant bonding, many incorrectly confuse this construct with mother-infant attachment. Further, available tools are limited to those that employ self-report methods, thus may reflect perceived behaviour, rather than actual behaviour. The RIT is a novel tool for observational assessment of mother-infant bonding. A standard interaction between mother and infant is recorded, and later assessed against specified bonding-related behaviours. Before its use in research, reliability testing must be undertaken to ensure the RIT may be used consistently., Methods: The RIT was administered to 15 mother-infant dyads. Participant recordings were assessed by three trained raters at two time points, using the RIT observation scoring sheet. Intra-rater reliability was determined by comparing scores at each time point for each rater. Inter-rater reliability was determined by assessing reliability of scores at the first time point., Results: Strong intra-rater reliability (ICC >0.86) and fair inter-rater reliability (ICC = 0.55) were observed., Conclusion: The current findings support the RIT's potential to reliably assess mother-infant bonding.

Objective: To systematically review studies examining the effects of home-visiting preventive parenting programs (HV-PPs) on improving the quality of mother-child interactions in early childhood. Method: Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses protocol, we identified 3,586 studies published between 2018 and 2022 by searching the following databases: PubMed, Web of Science, BVS/LILACS, SciELO, and PsycNET/PsycINFO. After applying the eligibility criteria, 17 articles were selected for review. Results: Most studies were conducted in high-income countries (53%) and the remainder were conducted in upper-middle-income countries, predominantly using a randomized controlled trial design and with strong methodological quality. The 17 studies applied 13 different HV-PPs, predominantly using video feedback, based on various dosages and schedules. Most studies (77%) showed significant positive effects on mother-child interactions by improving mainly positive maternal behaviors (e.g., sensitivity and responsiveness). Positive effects occurred independent of the study design, sample characteristics, measures, and constructs assessed. However, the findings suggest that the combination of fewer than six sessions, durations shorter than three months, and a very early start did not impact mother-child interactions, as expected. Few studies have explored negative maternal behaviors, children's behaviors, and dyadic interactions such as mutuality and synchrony. Conclusions: HV-PPs positively impacted mother-child interactions in early childhood despite the large heterogeneity across program designs, outcome measures, and overlapping constructs. Based on the results, we discuss the practical and economic implications of using parenting programs as a preventive approach., Competing Interests: Conflict of Interest: The authors of this article declare no conflict of interest.

The early caregiving environment can have lasting effects on child mental health. Animal models suggest that glucocorticoid receptor gene ( NR3C1 ) DNA methylation plays a mediating role in linking more responsive caregiving to improved behavioral outcomes by its impact on the stress regulatory system. In this longitudinal study, we examined whether children's NR3C1 methylation levels mediate an effect of maternal sensitivity in infancy on levels of child internalizing and externalizing behavior in a community sample. Maternal sensitivity of 145 mothers was rated at infant age 5 weeks, 12 months, and 30 months by observing mother-infant interactions. Buccal DNA methylation was assessed in the same children at age 6 years and maternal-reported internalizing and externalizing behavior was assessed at age 6 and 10 years. Higher sensitivity at age 5 weeks significantly predicted lower DNA methylation levels at two NR3C1 CpG loci, although methylation levels at these loci did not mediate an effect of maternal sensitivity on levels of child internalizing and externalizing behavior. Overall, the study provides evidence that maternal sensitivity in early infancy is associated with DNA methylation levels at loci involved in stress regulation, but the significance of this finding for child mental health remains unclear.

Background: Parenting behavior is thought to affect child brain development, with implications for mental health. However, longitudinal studies that use whole-brain approaches are lacking. In this study, we investigated associations between parenting behavior, age-related changes in whole-brain functional connectivity, and psychopathology symptoms in children and adolescents., Methods: Two hundred forty (126 female) children underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging at up to two time points, providing a total of 398 scans covering the age range 8 to 13 years. Parenting behavior was self-reported at baseline. Parenting factors (positive parenting, inattentive parenting, and harsh and inconsistent discipline) were identified based on a factor analysis of self-report parenting questionnaires. Longitudinal measures of child internalizing and externalizing symptoms were collected. Network-based R-statistics was used to identify associations between parenting and age-related changes in functional connectivity., Results: Higher maternal inattentive behavior was associated with lower decreases in connectivity over time, particularly between regions of the ventral attention and default mode networks and frontoparietal and default mode networks. However, this association was not significant after strict correction for multiple comparisons., Conclusions: While results should be considered preliminary, they suggest that inattentive parenting may be associated with a reduction in the normative pattern of increased network specialization that occurs with age. This may reflect a delayed development of functional connectivity., (Copyright © 2023 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Accepting and adapting the maternal role by mothers with premature infants is complicated. Active participation of mothers in neonate massage may facilitate this process., Primary Study Objective: Determining the effect of massage on maternal role adaptation in mothers of premature infants admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU)., Methods/design: A non-parallel quasi-experimental study with a sequential sampling method., Setting: This study was done in the NICU of Imam Ali Hospital in Amol City, Iran., Participants: 90 mothers of premature infants hospitalized in the NICU participated in this study., Intervention: The mothers in the intervention group after receiving two training sessions massaged their infant for 15 minutes daily from the third day of hospitalization for 5 consecutive days., Primary Outcome Measures: A maternal role adaptation questionnaire was used. Participants completed the maternal role adaptation questionnaire 3 times: before, on the fifth day, and 14 days after the first day of intervention. The maternal role adaptation questionnaire was used to assess the maternal role adaptation. The participants of the control group also filled out the questionnaire at similar time., Results: The mean scores of maternal adaptation were significantly different between the two control groups (5th day and 14th day) and intervention (day 5: 136.88 ± 10.062 (P = .025); day 14: 151.93 ± 6 (P < .001)). Maternal role adaptation showed an upward trend in the two groups during the 14 days of study, but this trend was significantly higher in the intervention group over time, compared to the control group., Conclusion: Massage of premature infants facilitates the adaptation to maternal role. It is recommended, along with other nursing interventions, to empower mothers with premature neonates admitted to the NICU.

Studies examining infant cradling have almost uniformly concluded with a general human left-side bias for cradling, indicating that people prefer to hold an infant to the left of their body. Explanations for the notion of the left-side cradling bias have traditionally been searched for in a variety of factors, for example, in terms of maternal heartbeat, genetic factors, in the form of an ear asymmetry where auditory information is perceived faster through the left ear, as a result of a right hemispheric functional specialization for perception of emotions and faces, and in identifying a motor bias of the infant, such as the tendency of newborn infants to lie with the face to the right when placed supine. Interestingly, handedness is generally considered an inadequate explanation for the lateralized cradling bias, despite it being an intuitively plausible one. In this brief review, I put forward the cradler's handedness as the most convincing and elegant determinant of the cradling bias. This explanation is consistent with a developmental cascades' framework where the cradling bias can be understood as the result of a multitude of factors across a range of levels and systems., (© 2023 The Authors. Infancy published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Congress of Infant Studies.)

Mothers who use substances during pregnancy and postpartum may have altered maternal behavior towards their infants, which can have negative consequences on infant social-emotional development. Since maternal substance use has been associated with difficulties in recognizing and responding to infant emotional expressions, investigating mothers' subjective responses to emotional infant stimuli may provide insight into the neural and psychological processes underlying these differences in maternal behavior. In this study, 39 mothers who used substances during the perinatal period and 42 mothers who did not underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while viewing infant faces and hearing infant cries. Afterwards, they rated the emotional intensity they thought each infant felt ('think'-rating), and how intensely they felt in response to each infant stimulus ('feel'-rating). Mothers who used substances had lower 'feel'-ratings of infant stimuli compared to mothers who did not. Brain regions implicated in affective processing (e.g., insula, inferior frontal gyrus) were less active in response to infant stimuli, and activity in these brain regions statistically predicted maternal substance-use status. Interestingly, 'think'-ratings and activation in brain regions related to cognitive processing (e.g., medial prefrontal cortex) were comparable between the two groups of mothers. Taken together, these results suggest specific neural and psychological processes related to emotional responsivity to infant stimuli may reflect differences in maternal affective processing and may contribute to differences in maternal behavior in mothers who use substances compared to mothers who do not. The findings suggest potential neural targets for increasing maternal emotional responsivity and improving child outcomes., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare no competing interests with respect to the content of this manuscript. MNP has consulted for Opiant Therapeutics, Game Day Data, Baria-Tek, the Addiction Policy Forum, AXA and Idorsia Pharmaceuticals; has been involved in a patent application with Yale University and Novartis; received research support from the Mohegan Sun Casino and the Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling; and consulted for legal and gambling entities on issues related to impulse-control disorders and addictions. The other authors report no disclosures., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: Patterns of sensory inputs early in life play an integral role in shaping the maturation of neural circuits, including those implicated in emotion and cognition. In both experimental animal models and observational human research, unpredictable sensory signals have been linked to aberrant developmental outcomes, including poor memory and effortful control. These findings suggest that sensitivity to unpredictable sensory signals is conserved across species and sculpts the developing brain. The current study provides a novel investigation of unpredictable maternal sensory signals in early life and child internalizing behaviors. We tested these associations in three independent cohorts to probe the generalizability of associations across continents and cultures., Method: The three prospective longitudinal cohorts were based in Orange, USA (n = 163, 47.2 % female, M age  = 1 year); Turku, Finland (n = 239, 44.8 % female, M age  = 5 years); and Irvine, USA (n = 129, 43.4 % female, M age  = 9.6 years). Unpredictability of maternal sensory signals was quantified during free-play interactions. Child internalizing behaviors were measured via parent report (Orange & Turku) and child self-report (Irvine)., Results: Early life exposure to unpredictable maternal sensory signals was associated with greater child fearfulness/anxiety in all three cohorts, above and beyond maternal sensitivity and sociodemographic factors. The association between unpredictable maternal sensory signals and child sadness/depression was relatively weaker and did not reach traditional thresholds for statistical significance., Limitations: The correlational design limits our ability to make causal inferences., Conclusions: Findings across the three diverse cohorts suggest that unpredictable maternal signals early in life shape the development of internalizing behaviors, particularly fearfulness and anxiety., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest No conflicts of interests were reported by the authors., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is more frequently diagnosed in men. Nevertheless, through current diagnostic tools, women have also been found to be affected by this disorder, but in different ways. Few studies have been conducted regarding unique periods of life, such as motherhood. Yet, extant literature has already described the existence of a comorbidity between autism and postpartum depression. Thus, this study aimed to compare the maternal care sphere between two animal models of these diseases. Lactating rats were subdivided into three groups (n = 8 animals/group): 1) control dams; 2) maternal separation (MS) dams, separated from their litter for 3 h daily from lactating day (LD) 2-12 for postpartum depression induction; and 3) valproic acid (VPA) dams, which were the pups of dams treated with 400 mg/kg of VPA (i.p.) on gestational day 12.5 for autism induction. Maternal care tests were performed during lactation and, after weaning, dams were euthanized for the analysis of dopaminergic system on the prefrontal cortex. The results showed an impairment of maternal care of MS dams and an improvement of VPA dams, as well as alterations on dopaminergic system that corroborates the behavior data. These findings indicate that VPA dams express better maternal care, even with cognitive and socialization difficulties. This is probably due to a hyper-focus, as opposed to MS dams, which mimic the maternal care dysfunction expressed by women with postpartum depression., (Copyright © 2023 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

This study was conducted to assess the psychometric properties of the Barkin Index of Maternal Functioning (BIMF) in an Ethiopian context. Data were obtained from 202 women with a child less than 1 year of age. Narrow standard deviations characterized responses to most BIMF items, but a handful of items had wider standard deviations associated with bimodality. Most interitem correlations were < |.15|, and 13 of the 20 BIMF items did not load satisfactorily on any factor in exploratory factor analyses. Two factors emerged from the remaining items, one with three items and the other with four. Although poor reliability results relating to internal (interitem) and temporal consistency could be attributed to limited variability in the data, a number of concerns are raised about the BIMF itself, including its content validity, instructions, response options, and usefulness in healthcare settings. Suggestions are made for improving the assessment of maternal functioning in Ethiopia and other contexts. More generally, this research demonstrates that researchers should not assume that the psychometric properties and appropriateness of scales will remain robust when those scales are used in contexts that differ from the contexts in which they were created.

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).

During pregnancy, physiological adaptations prepare the female body for the challenges of motherhood. Becoming a parent also requires behavioral adaptations. Such adaptations can occur as early as during pregnancy, but how pregnancy hormones remodel parenting circuits to instruct preparatory behavioral changes remains unknown. We found that action of estradiol and progesterone on galanin (Gal)-expressing neurons in the mouse medial preoptic area (MPOA) is critical for pregnancy-induced parental behavior. Whereas estradiol silences MPOA Gal neurons and paradoxically increases their excitability, progesterone permanently rewires this circuit node by promoting dendritic spine formation and recruitment of excitatory synaptic inputs. This MPOA Gal -specific neural remodeling sparsens population activity in vivo and results in persistently stronger, more selective responses to pup stimuli. Pregnancy hormones thus remodel parenting circuits in anticipation of future behavioral need.

Childhood maltreatment is a predictor of subsequent parenting behaviors; however, the mechanisms explaining this association have been understudied. The present study examined the indirect effect of childhood maltreatment on maternal sensitivity to distress via (a) emotion regulation difficulties, (b) negative attributions about infant crying, (c) minimizing attributions about infant crying, and (d) situational attributions about infant crying. The sample included 259 primiparous mothers (131 Black and 128 White) and their 6-month-old infants (52% female). Mothers retrospectively reported on their childhood history of maltreatment when their infants were about 2 years old. Emotion regulation difficulties and causal attributions about infant crying were assessed prenatally. Maternal sensitivity to distress was rated during three distress-eliciting tasks when children were 6 months old. Results from the structural equation model demonstrated that maternal childhood maltreatment was significantly positively associated with negative attributions about infant crying but not with emotion regulation difficulties, minimizing attributions, or situational attributions about crying. Furthermore, negative attributions about crying were associated with lower sensitivity to distress, and there was an indirect effect of childhood maltreatment on sensitivity to distress via negative attributions about infant distress. These effects were significant above and beyond the effects of coherence of mind, concurrent depressive symptoms, infant affect, maternal age, race, education, marital status, and income-to-needs ratio. The results suggest that altering negative attributions about infant crying may be an important area to intervene during the prenatal period to reduce continuity in maladaptive parenting across generations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

This study examines the relationships among maternal meta-emotion philosophy, maternal video-mediated cognitions, and adolescent behavior adjustment. We adopt video-mediated recall methods to obtain mothers' perceptions of their interaction with their children. In total, 121 pairs of mothers (age, M = 42.55) and their adolescent children (age, M = 12.34) were videotaped for 10 min while discussing daily issues. The mothers reviewed the tape (30 episodes) and rated their own behaviors and the counterparts' behaviors on 8 cognitive or affective dimensions. The mothers also completed a parental meta-emotion philosophy inventory, and the adolescents completed the Youth Self-Report. The results indicate that maternal emotional dysfunction has a positive effect on adolescents' externalizing problem behaviors through mothers' perceptions of conflictual interaction. These findings highlight the importance of considering maternal meta-emotion philosophy in the mother-adolescent interaction process and understanding adolescent problem behaviors., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Introduction: Associations between Problematic Gaming (PG) and the relational-emotional correlates of parenting have been reported in the literature. Previous research mostly collected information from adolescents, however, and suggested that little is known about the perceptions of parents and whether these are shared among parent-adolescent dyads. Therefore, this study aimed to (a) examine multiple informants' reports of adolescent PG and maternal behaviors (i.e., warmth and indifference) and (b) disentangle the associations between the behaviors shared by mothers and adolescents from those unique to each member., Method: Data were collected by using self-administered online questionnaires from 137 Italian mother-adolescent dyads in Italy. The mean age of adolescents (n = 92 males, n = 42 females, n = 3 nonbinary) was 14.68 (±1.25) years and that of mothers 47.48 (±4.69) years. Descriptive statistics and common fate model (CFM) analyses were conducted., Results: Mothers reported higher scores of their offspring's PG. Within-reporter interclass correlations revealed positive associations between maternal indifference and adolescent PG for both informants. CFM indicated that correlations between maternal behaviors and adolescent PG based on shared perceptions did not reach statistical significance, whereas correlations based on unique mothers' perceptions were statistically significant for all the observed relationships., Conclusions: In the context of adolescent PG, mothers may have a heightened motivation to perceive their parenting as crucial. The multi-informant approach allows a more accurate examination of the associations between adolescent PG and maternal behaviors and underscores the need to consider discordant assessment of the same phenomenon between mothers and adolescents., 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 © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: Childbirth has become increasingly medicalised, which may impact on the mother's birth experience and her newborn infant's physiology and behaviour. Although associations have been found between a mother's subjective birth experience and her baby's temperament, there is limited qualitative evidence around how and why this may occur., Objectives: This qualitative study aimed to explore mothers' childbirth and postnatal experiences, perceptions of their baby's early behavioural style, and whether they saw these as related., Methods: A qualitative semi-structured interview schedule collected rich in-depth data. Twenty-two healthy mothers over 18 years of age and with healthy infants aged 0-12 months born at term, were recruited from Southwest regions of England and Wales. Thematic analysis was performed on the data., Results: Mothers experienced childbirth as a momentous physical and psychological process. However, they did not necessarily perceive the birth as affecting their baby's early behaviour or temperament. While some mothers drew a direct relationship, such as linking a straightforward birth to a calm infant, others did not make an explicit connection, especially those who experienced a challenging birth and postnatal period. Nevertheless, mothers who had a difficult or medicalised birth sometimes reported unsettled infant behaviour. It is possible that mothers who feel anxious or depressed after a challenging birth, or those without a good support network, may simply perceive their infant as more unsettled. Equally, mothers who have been well-supported and experienced an easier birth could be more likely to perceive their baby as easier to care for., Conclusions: Childbirth is a physical and psychological event that may affect mother-infant wellbeing and influence maternal perceptions of early infant temperament. The present findings add to prior evidence, reinforcing the importance of providing good physical and emotional support during and after childbirth to encourage positive mother-infant outcomes., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Power et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Background: Mother's childbirth-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms have a negative impact on mother and infant's behaviors during dyadic interactions which may increase mother-infant neurophysiological and behavioral co-regulation difficulties, leading to dysregulated mother-infant interactions. This study was specifically designed to analyze: (1) the sociodemographic and obstetric factors associated with mother's childbirth-related PTSD symptoms; (2) mother-infant neurophysiological functioning and behavioral co-regulation during dyadic interaction; (3) the impact of mother's childbirth-related PTSD symptoms on neurophysiological and behavioral mother-infant co-regulation during dyadic interaction; (4) the moderator role of previous trauma on the impact of mother's childbirth-related PTSD symptoms on neurophysiological and behavioral mother-infant co-regulation during dyadic interaction; and (5) the moderator role of comorbid symptoms of anxiety and depression on the impact of mother's childbirth-related PTSD symptoms on neurophysiological and behavioral mother-infant co-regulation during dyadic interaction., Methods: At least 250 mothers will be contacted in order to account for refusals and dropouts and guarantee at least 100 participating mother-infant dyads with all the assessment waves completed. The study has a longitudinal design with three assessment waves: (1) 1-3 days postpartum, (2) 8 weeks postpartum, and (3) 22 weeks postpartum. Between 1 and 3 days postpartum, mothers will report on-site on their sociodemographic and obstetric characteristics. At 8 weeks postpartum, mothers will complete online self-reported measures of birth trauma, previous trauma, childbirth-related PTSD, anxiety, and depressive symptoms. At 22 weeks postpartum, mothers will complete online self-reported measures of childbirth-related PTSD, anxiety, and depressive symptoms. Mothers and infants will then be home-visited to observe and record their neurophysiological, neuroimaging and behavioral data during dyadic interactions using the Still-face Paradigm. Activation patterns in the prefrontal cortices of mother and infant will be recorded simultaneously using hyperscanning acquisition devices. Unadjusted and adjusted multilevel linear regression models will be performed to analyze objectives 1 to 3. Moderation models will be performed to analyze objectives 4 and 5., Discussion: Data from this study will inform psychological interventions targeting mother-infant interaction, co-regulation, and infant development. Moreover, these results can contribute to designing effective screenings to identify mothers at risk of perinatal mental health problems and those who may need specialized perinatal mental health care., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

We assessed whether the negative association between maternal postpartum depression (PPD) and infants' development of joint attention (gaze following) generalizes from WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) to Majority World contexts. The study was conducted in Bhutan ( N = 105, M = 278 days, 52% males) but also draws from publicly available Swedish data ( N = 113, M = 302 days, 49% males). We demonstrate that Bhutanese and Swedish infants' development follows the same trajectory. However, Bhutanese infants' gaze following were not related to maternal PPD, which the Swedish infants' were. The results support the notion that there are protecting factors built into the interdependent family model. Despite all the benefits of being raised in a modern welfare state, it seems like Swedish infants, to an extent, are more vulnerable to maternal mental health than Bhutanese infants. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Prompt, appropriate, and contingent maternal behaviors play a role in early language acquisition, as do individual differences in children's temperament. However, little work has investigated the combined influence of maternal psychosocial and child biological factors on expressive language development. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the concurrent and longitudinal contributions of responsive/intrusive parenting and child temperament to multiple expressive language outcomes at 10 and 24 months of age. Participants included 407 mothers and children (209 girls). Mothers completed questionnaires about their infant's temperament and language, and maternal parenting was coded during mother-child interaction tasks. Dependent variables included (1) gestures at 10 months, (2) vocabulary at 24 months, (3) mean length of utterance at 24 months, and (4) sentence complexity at 24 months. After controlling for child sex and maternal education, child temperament was associated with language outcomes at 10 and 24 months, whereas intrusive, but not responsive, parenting related to only 24 month language outcomes. Longitudinally, infant negative affectivity predicted sentence complexity in toddlerhood. These findings elucidate the presence of both psychological and biological predictors as they differentially influence various aspects of expressive language development across the first two postnatal years., (© 2022 The Authors. Developmental Psychobiology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Stress regulation begins to develop in the first year of life through interactions with caregivers, particularly in the presence of stressors. High quality caregiving, characterized by maternal sensitivity and responsiveness to the infant's emotional cues, is particularly important in the development of infant stress regulation. The purpose of this study was to assess the longitudinal stability of, and associations between, maternal interactive behavior and infant stress regulation (indexed by positive infant affect and cortisol reactivity) in response to the Still Face paradigm (SF) in a cohort of infants born preterm (< 32 weeks gestation, N = 22) at four months and nine months (adjusted age). The percent of time mothers spent using specific interaction styles (contingent maternal interaction (CMI), attention seeking, and watching) during Play/baseline, Reunion#1, and Reunion#2 SF episodes was calculated To assess infant stress regulation, two indices were obtained at both 4 and 9 months during the SF paradigm: the percent of positive affect displayed over each SF episode (0-100%) and a neuroendocrine stress response score based on salivary cortisol reactivity. We found three non-significant but medium-large effect size differences between 4 and 9 month variables, with more positive findings at 9 months. Regarding stability within the 4 month and 9 month episodes, maternal behavior and positive infant affect were non-significantly but moderately stable, with maternal watching behavior being particularly stable. Positive infant affect stability between Reunion#1 and Reunion#2 at 4 months was significantly greater than positive infant affect stability across these two episodes at 9 months. Regarding stability across 4 and 9 month (same) episodes, CMI and positive infant affect showed modest but non-significant stability across (same) 4 and 9 month episodes. Finally, with positive infant affect at Reunion#2 as the "outcome" of the Still Face, CMI at both 4 month Play and Reunion#1 episodes were significantly correlated with this "outcome." Further, positive infant affect at Reunion#2 was more strongly correlated with CMI at both Play and Reunion#1 for 4 month old compared with 9 month old infants. Thus, sensitive care appears particularly important for younger infants born preterm, and mothers' behavior early in a repeated stress exposure paradigm may be particularly important in maintaining positive infant affect and in the development of infants' stress regulation more generally. Identifying the longer-term effects of early stress on infant stress regulation, and its relationship with maternal interaction, has important implications for understanding trajectories of regulatory patterns and deficits. A greater understanding of these relationships is particularly important given that greater emotion and neuroendocrine stress regulation in infancy have been directly associated with numerous positive outcomes throughout childhood., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Links between global levels of maternal depressive symptoms and parenting behavior in early childhood are well established. However, depression is a heterogeneous disorder and little is known about how individual differences in depression symptoms may be differentially associated with different types of parenting behavior. We aimed to uncover nuance in the relationship between depression and parenting behavior by examining individual differences in symptoms of maternal depression and associations with parenting behavior with 2- and 3-year-old children. Participants included 714 diverse, low-income mothers and their 2-year-old children. Maternal depression symptoms were self-reported at child age 2. Three domains of parenting behavior (harsh, positive, and disengaged) were coded from mother-child interactions at ages 2 and 3. Individual differences in maternal depressive symptoms at child age 2 comprised five profiles: low, interpersonal rejection, moderate, high depressed affect and physical, and severe. Women with the high depressed affect and physical profile demonstrated the greatest risk for parenting challenges with higher levels of harsh parenting at child age 2 compared to all other profiles and higher levels of disengaged parenting at child age 3 compared to the low, moderate, and severe profiles. Unexpectedly, positive parenting did not differ by maternal depression profile at either age. There is wide heterogeneity in symptoms of depression among mothers of 2-year-old children that is clinically relevant for different dimensions of parenting. Physical and depressed affect symptoms in particular may present risk for harsh parenting. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The development of maternal representations of the child during pregnancy guides a mother's thoughts, feelings, and behavior toward her child. The association between prenatal representations, particularly those that are disrupted, and toddler social-emotional functioning is not well understood. The present study examined associations between disrupted prenatal representations and toddler social-emotional functioning and to test disrupted maternal behavior as a mediator of this association. Data were drawn from 109 women from a larger prospective longitudinal study ( N =120) of women and their young children. Prenatal disrupted maternal representations were assessed using the Working Model of the Child Interview disrupted coding scheme, while disrupted maternal behavior was coded 12-months postpartum from mother-infant interactions. Mother-reported toddler social-emotional functioning was assessed at ages 12 and 24 months. Disrupted prenatal representations significantly predicted poorer toddler social-emotional functioning at 24 months, controlling for functioning at 12 months. Further, disrupted maternal behavior mediated the relation between disrupted prenatal representations and toddler social-emotional problems. Screening for disrupted representations during pregnancy is needed to facilitate referrals to early intervention and decrease the likelihood of toddler social-emotional problems.

In the present study, the attributions of socially and economically disadvantaged mothers for their own negative parenting behavior and for their children's undesirable behaviors as perceived by parents-understood as misbehavior-were analyzed. To this end, an exploratory study with a qualitative design was developed, in which 24 socially and economically disadvantaged mothers were individually interviewed. The data were analyzed following a thematic analysis approach, using software suited to qualitative analysis, namely NVIVO 12. The children's undesirable behaviors as perceived by parents and some characteristics associated with parental performance (particularly the appraisal of the effectiveness of their negative practices) emerged respectively as external and internal factors, explaining mothers' inadaptive behaviors-difficulties in behavior regulation, physical coercion, psychological control and paraverbal hostility. The parental subsystem and school emerged as the main external factors, and the psychological characteristics as the most relevant internal factors, explaining the children's undesirable behaviors-challenge, immaturity, hostility, emotionally-based, school behavior/absenteeism and danger. The results also indicate weak self-critical reflexivity regarding some of the inadaptive behaviors. The comprehensive analysis of the results, based on the literature review, gave rise to an explanatory hypothesis on the dysfunctional circular process regarding the maintenance of inadaptive practices and children's undesirable behaviors, considering the role played by parental attributions and by insufficient parental reflexivity.

Mother-child reminiscing about past emotional experiences is one aspect of emotion socialization that facilitates child socio-emotional and cognitive outcomes. To advance understanding of the multidimensional nature of this clinically significant transdiagnostic process, the current investigation examined the structure of maternal reminiscing and how emergent factors related to child outcomes across two diverse samples (total N = 337). Sample one included 102 mothers and their preschool-aged children from community agencies, and sample two included 235 mothers and their preschool-aged children, the majority of whom had experienced substantiated maltreatment. Dyads completed a reminiscing task coded for multiple aspects of maternal reminiscing style (frequency and scale-based coding), assessments of child receptive language and internalizing and externalizing problems, and measures of parenting. Factor analyses confirmed that maternal reminiscing was best defined by three factors: (1) structural elaborations, (2) emotional attributions, and (3) sensitive guidance, and this three-factor structure was invariant across samples, maltreatment, maternal race, and child sex. When controlling for other dimensions of caregiver-reported parenting behavior, reminiscing sensitive guidance was significantly positively associated with child language and negatively with child internalizing and externalizing symptoms. In contrast, emotional elaborations were associated with higher child internalizing concerns. When controlling for caregiver-reported parenting and observed maternal sensitivity, structural elaborations negatively and emotional attributions positively related to child internalizing symptoms, whereas reminiscing factors did not significantly predict child externalizing symptoms nor child language. Distinct aspects of maternal reminiscing behavior are differentially related to child outcomes. Limitations and implications for understanding and measuring emotion socialization interactions are discussed., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

The presence of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders has typically been associated with decreases in the quality of mother-infant interactions. However, maternal anxiety symptoms during the postpartum period have been less studied than other mental health disorders like depression. In the current study, we examined associations among symptoms of maternal anxiety, maternal perceived stress, and mother-infant behavioral synchrony in the early postnatal period. Eighty-one mother-infant dyads participated in this study when the infants were 3 months old. Surveys were given to obtain demographic information and current maternal mental health symptoms, and dyads completed a 5-min free-play task to measure behavioral synchrony. Results indicated that maternal anxiety symptoms were positively associated with behavioral synchrony, but only for mothers reporting moderate levels of perceived stress. These findings highlight the differential impact of maternal postpartum mental health on behavioral synchrony and suggest that higher maternal anxiety symptoms during the postnatal period may play an adaptive role in fostering more dynamic mother-infant interactions., (© 2022 International Congress of Infant Studies.)

Infant attachment is a key predictor of later socioemotional functioning, but it is not clear how parental responsivity to infant expressive behavior is associated with attachment outcomes. A mid-range model of responsivity holds that both unresponsive and highly reactive parental behaviors lead to insecure and disorganized attachment. We examined the relationship between maternal (and infant) contingent responsivity and attachment in a high-risk sample. Participants were 625 infant-mother pairs from a longitudinal study of children with and without prenatal drug exposure and variable levels of associated social risks. Infant-mother pairs participated in the Face-to-Face/Still-Face paradigm (FFSF) at 4-months and in the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP) at 18-months. A model incorporating both linear and quadratic responsivity effects indicated that mothers who were either very high (reactive) or very low (unresponsive) in responsivity were more likely to have infants with disorganized attachment outcomes. While maternal responsivity was associated with attachment disorganization, no associations between maternal responsivity, and attachment security/insecurity were detected. Infant responsivity to mother was not associated with attachment outcomes. The findings suggest the importance of mid-range levels of maternal responsivity in the development of organized attachment among infants facing high levels of prenatal and social risk., (© 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Cooperative interactions are an essential aspect of human life, which children start to engage in the course of toddlerhood. Cooperation can often be challenging and requires repair and realignment. So far, little effort has been made to investigate how young children deal with emotionally challenging cooperative interactions. Therefore, we examined which factors explain 24-month-old toddlers' (n = 90) behavior to interruptions in two frustrating cooperative interactions, that is, their disengagement from the task, approach to the mother, active help seeking, and reengagement. We focused on child temperament (i.e., shyness) and child cognitive skills (i.e., language and self-control), and were especially interested whether mother-child interaction quality (i.e., sensitivity and non-intrusiveness) contributes beyond child characteristics. Results indicated that maternal intrusiveness significantly predicted more child disengagement and more approach to the mother. Furthermore, toddler self-control was positively associated with approach to mother, while toddler language skills were positively related to active help seeking. Reengagement was neither predicted by child characteristics nor by maternal emotional availability. We discuss how the findings of the current study expand our knowledge of the factors that impact toddlers' social competencies and coping strategies in emotionally challenging cooperative interactions with others., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

In a longitudinal study, mothers (N = 50) self-reported on their depressive symptoms (DS) and their child's behavior during the first year and at 36 months postpartum. Maternal DS during infancy were associated with child conduct problems (CP), suggesting a long-term association between maternal mental health and the development of child behavior. Infant temperament was also associated with child behavior so that negative affect predicted child CP, while infant surgency was associated with later hyperactivity-inattention. This study contributes to the literature by jointly assessing the role of maternal DS and infant temperament and showing that these are independent predictors of childhood behavior., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

This study assessed the effects of maternal smartphone use on mother-child interaction. Thirty-three Israeli mothers and their 24- to 36-month-old toddlers (16 boys) from middle-high socioeconomic status participated in three within-subjects experimental conditions: maternal smartphone use, maternal magazine reading, and uninterrupted dyadic free-play. The mothers produced fewer utterances, provided fewer responses to child bids, missed child bids more often, and exchanged fewer conversational turns with their children when engaged with a smartphone or printed magazines compared to uninterrupted free-play. The quality of maternal responsiveness was also decreased. These findings suggest maternal smartphone use compromises mother-child interaction, which given smartphone ubiquity in daily life may have negative effects on child development in various domains, including language, cognition, and socioemotional regulation., (© 2021 The Authors. Child Development © 2021 Society for Research in Child Development.)

Adults of many species will care for young offspring that are not their own, a phenomenon called alloparenting. However, in many cases, nonparental adults must be sensitized by repeated or extended exposures to newborns before they will robustly display parental-like behaviors. To capture neurogenomic events underlying the transition to active parental caring behaviors, we analyzed brain gene expression and chromatin profiles of virgin female mice co-housed with pregnant dams during pregnancy and after birth. After an initial display of antagonistic behaviors and a surge of defense-related gene expression, we observed a dramatic shift in the chromatin landscape specifically in amygdala of the pup-exposed virgin females compared to females co-housed with mother before birth, accompanied by a dampening of anxiety-related gene expression. This epigenetic shift coincided with hypothalamic expression of the oxytocin gene and the emergence of behaviors and gene expression patterns classically associated with maternal care. The results outline a neurogenomic program associated with dramatic behavioral changes and suggest molecular networks relevant to human postpartum mental health., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.