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To evaluate the measurement properties of construct validity and reliability of the Brazilian Portuguese version of the Postpartum bonding questionnaire (PBQ). The PBQ was applied 1 to 8 months after birth in a cohort of 489 mothers and babies followed from pregnancy to postpartum. To assess structural validity, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were carried out through structural equation models (SEM), using the robust weighted least squares estimator (WLSMV) and oblique rotation. The Comparative fit index (CFI), Tucker-Lewis index (TLI), and root of the mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) were used to verify model adequacy, and composite reliability (CR) by factor to assess internal consistency. Given the moderate association between the factors and theoretical evidence of a general factor of the construct, a second order factor analysis was performed. A hierarchical factorial model was found, with a second order factor, three first order factors ('Lack of joy and pleasure', 'Rejection and anger' and 'Anxiety and risk of abuse') and 12 items. The adjustment indexes proved to be adequate (CFI = 0.983, TLI = 0.978 and RMSEA 0.031, IC = 0.013-0.045). The three dimensions showed good internal consistency (CR = 0.835, 0.792, and 0.691 respectively), indicating good reliability. The final Brazilian version of PBQ showed adequate measurement properties of construct validity and internal consistency, providing a promising and unprecedented instrument for use in scientific research and clinical assistance in Brazil., Author(s): Márcia Leonardi Baldisserotto [sup.1] , Rosane Harter Griep [sup.2] , John Oates [sup.3] , Mariza Miranda Theme-Filha [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.418068.3, 0000 0001 0723 0931, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz- [...]

The relationship between maternal mentalizaion, recognition of infant cues, bonding, and executive functioning in a sample of 64 mothers of young infants is examined. Findings revealed a positive relationship between maternal mentalization and their ability to distinguish facial expressions in infants. The impacts of maternal cognitive factors on mother-infant relationship are investigated further.

In a variety of species, development of attachment to a caregiver is crucial for infant survival and partly mediated by the endogenous opioids. Functional mu-opioid receptor gene polymorphisms are present in humans (OPRM1 A118G) and rhesus macaques (OPRM1 C77G). We hypothesized that rhesus infants carrying a gain-of-function OPRM1 77G allele would experience increased reward during maternal contact and would, therefore, display increased measures of attachment. We collected behavioral data from rhesus macaques (n = 97) during early infancy and at 6 months of age, across four cycles of maternal separation (4 days) and reunion (3 days). Animals were genotyped for the OPRM1 C77G polymorphism, and the effects of this allele on attachmentrelated behaviors were analyzed. Infants carrying the G allele exhibited higher levels of attachment behavior during early infancy. During prolonged periods of maternal separation, although infant macaques homozygous for the C allele exhibited decreases in their levels of distress vocalization with repeated separation, this response persisted in G allele carriers. The OPRM1 77G allele also affected social preference during reunion. C/G infants spent increasing amounts of time in social contact with their mothers as a function of repeated separation and were less likely to interact with other individuals in the social group, a pattern not observed among infants with the C/C genotype. These findings suggest a role for OPRM1 variation in the expression of attachment behavior in human subjects, especially as a function of separation from the caregiver. genetic | rhesus macaque | mother-infant bond | C77G | A118G

Maternal sensitivity to distress and nondistress were each coded for 357 mother-infant dyads at 6 months and 230 dyads at 15 months from videotaped observations of mother-infant play sessions. The results indicate that protective function of the child-mother attachment relationship may be especially salient during early infancy.

My responses to the observations and criticisms of 26 commentaries focus on the coregulated and affective nature of initial mother/infant interactions, the relationship between motherese and emergent linguistic skills and its implication for hominin evolution, the plausibility of the 'putting the baby down' hypothesis, and details about specific neurological substrates that may have formed the basis for the evolution of prelinguistic behaviors and, eventually, protolanguage.

Secure Beginnings is a program of psychotherapy for pregnant women with potential problems in the formation of the parent--child relationship including, in the extreme, infant maltreatment. The core of the therapeutic process is to help the mother recognize and think through unbearable thoughts and feelings rather than project expectations of abandonment, hate, helplessness of ridicule into her infant. Case material, from 18 months of treatment, is used to illustrate the Secure Beginnings approach. The case is a mother with psychosis and addiction who lost nine previous children to foster care. KEY WORDS: mother-infant; psychotherapy; at-risk populations.

An important issue for understanding early cognition is why very young children's real-world representations do not get confused by pretense events. One possible source of information for children is the pretender's behaviors. Pretender behaviors may vary systematically across real and pretend scenarios, perhaps signaling to toddlers to interpret certain events as not real. Pretender behaviors were examined in 2 experiments in which mothers were asked both to pretend to have a snack and really to have a snack with their 18-month-olds. Episodes were analyzed for condition differences in verbal and nonverbal behaviors, including smiling, looking, laughter, and functional movements. Reliable differences were found across conditions for several variables. In a 3rd experiment, children's apparent understanding of pretense in relation to their mothers' behaviors was examined, and significant associations were found with some of the mothers' behavioral changes but not others. This work provides a first inroad into the issue of how children learn to interpret pretense acts as pretense.

In a longitudinal study, internationally adopted children (N = 146) placed before 6 months of age were followed from infancy to age 7. Results showed that girls were better adjusted than boys, except in cognitive development, and that easy temperament was associated with higher levels of social, cognitive, and personality development and fewer behavior problems. Higher quality of child-mother relationships, in terms of attachment security and maternal sensitivity, uniquely predicted better social and cognitive development. The combination of attachment disorganization and difficult temperament predicted less optimal ego-control and lower levels of cognitive development. It is concluded that even in adopted children, who are not biologically related to their adoptive parents, early mother-infant interactions and attachment relationships predict later socioemotional and cognitive development, beyond infant temperament and gender.

This study assessed the association between aspects of mother's employment and security of infant-mother attachment, in combination with proximal (maternal sensitivity) and distal (demographic, maternal, child, child-care) factors. Participants were 145 Australian mothers and their firstborn children. Attachment security was assessed with the Strange Situation at 12 months. Results showed that mothers' prenatal attitudes to work and timing of the return to work made significant, independent contributions to attachment outcomes over and above the effects of proximal and distal predictors. Mothers who expressed more commitment to work and less anxiety about using nonfamily child care, and who returned to work earlier, were more likely to have secure infants. These findings are considered in relation to contemporary expectations about mothers' participation in paid work and other predictors of secure attachment.

This study examined the associations among mothers' insightfulness into their infants' internal experience, mothers' sensitivity to their infants' signals, and infants' security of attachment to their mothers. The insightfulness of 129 mothers of 12-month-old infants was assessed by showing mothers 3 videotaped segments of observations of their infants and themselves and interviewing them regarding their infants' and their own thoughts and feelings. Interviews were classified into 1 insightful and 3 noninsightful categories. Mothers' sensitivity was assessed during play sessions at home and at the laboratory, and infant-mother attachment was assessed with the Strange Situation. Mothers classified as positively insightful were rated as more sensitive and were more likely to have securely attached children than were mothers not classified as positively insightful. Insightfulness also accounted for variance in attachment beyond the variance explained by maternal sensitivity. These findings add an important dimension to research on caregiving, suggesting that mothers' seeking of explanations for the motives underlying their infants' behavior is related to both maternal sensitivity and infant attachment.

Biological and psychosocial risk factors in high-risk pregnancy and their relation to infant developmental outcomes were explored in a sample of 153 pregnant Israeli women who had pregestational diabetes mellitus, gestational diabetes mellitus, or were nondiabetic. Questionnaires on coping and resources as well as well-being and distress during the 2nd trimester were administered. Estimates of maternal fuels (HbAlc and fructosamine) were obtained throughout pregnancy. At 1 year, offspring were administered the Bayley Scales of Infant Development and mother-infant interactions were observed. Infants of mothers in the diabetic groups scored lower on the Bayley Scales and revealed fewer positive and more negative behaviors than did infants of mothers in the nondiabetic group. Infant outcomes in the maternal diabetic groups were associated with maternal metabolism. Maternal coping and resources differed in the 3 groups and differentially predicted infant development.

A group of Australian women whose newborn infants required neonatal intensive care were surveyed to see how they felt about nurses in the nursery. Many had negative reactions to what they saw as the nurses interfering with them caring for their infant. Possible psychological issues could result from lack of early mother-infant bonding.

This article discusses the relationship between mother-infant interaction, attachment behavior, and maternal sensitivity. Topics include infant behavior, security, and mothering technique.

Early maternal depression and its effects on infant-mother attachment is examined.

A measurement model of perinatal stressors was first evaluated for reliability and then used to identify risk factors for postnatal emotional distress in high-risk mothers. In Study 1, six measures (gestational age of the baby, birthweight, length of the baby's hospitalization, a postnatal complications rating for the infant, and Apgar scores at 1 and 5 min) were obtained from chart reviews of preterm births at two different hospitals. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that the six measures could be accounted for by three factors: (a) Infant Maturity, (b) Apgar Ratings, and (c) Complications. In Study 2, a modified measurement model indicated that Infant Maturity and Complications were significant predictors of postnatal emotional distress in an additional sample of mothers. This measurement model may also be useful in predicting (a) other measures of psychological distress in parents, and (b) measures of cognitive and motor development in infants.

Research presented concerns the relationship between types of infant care and compliance in toddlers. Topics addressed include a child's ability to conform to maternal demands, the role of the caregiver in the formation of compliant behavior, and the characteristics of child care services and maternal care.

A prospective longitudinal research study of 86 prematurely born children from birth to age 18 years provided empirical evidence for continuity from infancy experience to representations of attachment at age 18 years. Young adults whose representation of attachment was dismissing had been objectively observed during infancy, 16-17 years earlier, to receive less sensitive maternal care than those infants who were later judged at early adulthood to have secure or preoccupied representations. Infancy experience alone did not differentiate young adults with secure representations from those with preoccupied representations. Rather, adverse life events through age 12, particularly parental divorce, reduced the likelihood of secure representations and increased the likelihood of preoccupied representations. The absence of adverse life events did not increase the likelihood of security for those who had not experienced early sensitive caregiving.

4 mothers' skillful use of verbal and nonverbal behaviors to their first and second children was examined while each mother was playing with them for about one year after the birth of the second child. Analysis showed that maternal verbal interactions with the firstborn were frequently accompanied by nonverbal interactions toward the secondborn, especially during the first few months postpartum. The concurrent use of verbal and nonverbal behaviors with the two children may be a behavioral strategy for the mother to adjust to the birth of the second child.

This study examined relations between mother-infant affect synchrony and the emergence of children's self-control. Mother-infant face-to-face play and infant difficult temperament were examined at 3 and 9 months. Maternal and infant affective states at play were coded in 0.25-s frames, and synchrony was computed with cross-correlation functions. Self-control, verbal IQ, and maternal warm discipline were assessed at 2 years. Maternal synchrony with infant affect at 3 months (infant-leads-mother-follows relation) and mutual synchrony at 9 months (cross-dependence between maternal and infant affect) were each related to self-control at 2 years when temperament, IQ, and maternal style were partialed. Infant temperament moderated the relations of synchrony and self-control, and closer associations were found between mutual synchrony and self-control for difficult infants. Shorter lags to maternal synchrony at 3 months were independently related to self-control. The mutual regulation of affect in infancy, as moderated by temperament, is proposed as an important contributor to the emergence of self-regulation.

Studies conducted in China examining cross-cultural differences in 3- to 6-month-olds used the still-face paradigm. In each study, 20 infants were in the experimental group (normal, still-face, normal interactions) and 20 in the control (3 normal periods). In Study 1, infants interacted with either their mother or their father; they looked and smiled less to the still-face of both parents. In Study 2, infants interacted with both their mother and a stranger, with order counterbalanced. Experimental groups showed similar still-face effects to both adults. The control group responded similarly to the stranger in both orders but responded less to their mother when she interacted 2nd. The data were compared with archival data from Canadian infants. Although Chinese infants took longer to begin smiling, responding was similar in both cultures, despite differences in mothers' behavior: Chinese mothers played with the infants' arms; Canadian mothers played with the legs.

In a certain area of North London, mothers of new infants appear to move from identification with the child to autonomy. They are very interested in that which is natural, and start out with a kind of healthy narcissism, which gradually goes away as they separate from the child in a number of stages in a kind of rebirthing. As each stage is exposed in contradiction to create the foundation for the next, profundity grows. Shopping and social groups are focused on, from the anthropological research point of view, which is contrasted to the point of view of psychoanalysis.

Unmet breastfeeding goals during employment appear to significantly affect the feelings of working mothers. Interviews about planned feeding methods and feelings at weaning were conducted during pregnancy and throughout the first six months after delivery with 53 mothers intending to return to work. Women not breastfeeding as planned when working reported greater feelings of guilt, sadness, and depression. Other comparisons made were not significantly different.

Choice of feeding method does not seem to affect confidence in parenting skills among mothers of pre-term infants. One hundred seventy-three mothers of pre-term infants who either formula-fed or breastfed their infants completed questionnaires regarding parenting confidence and skills. Questionnaires were completed at delivery, after six hours of accumulated feeding time, and one week after discharge. Confidence levels were initially similar and progressed similarly over time.

The purpose of this study was to expand our knowledge about factors in substance-abusing women, other than chronic drug abuse, that may influence maternal caregiving behaviors. Specifically, the study explored relationships between maternal characteristics and mother-infant interaction in a sample of drug-abusing women to determine whether drug-addicted mothers' level of ego development affected mother-infant interaction at 1 month. Data collection occurred during a prenatal lab visit and I month postpartum and included a clinical interview, self-report on participants' addiction severity, clinical personality inventory, ego development test, and videotaped observation of mother-infant feeding interactions. Only ego development, and to a lesser degree psychological symptoms associated with substance abuse, were found to be significant predictors of maternal-child interaction at 1 month. This points to the need to focus on building internal resources in providing substance abuse treatment and other services for substance-abusing mothers. Keywords - Ego development; perinatal substance abuse; mother-infant interaction.