Abstract
Prenatal intrauterine exposures and postnatal caregiving environments may both shape the development of infant parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activity. However, the relative contributions of prenatal and postnatal influences on infant respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA)–an index of PNS functioning–are relatively unknown. We examined whether prenatal and postnatal maternal emotion dysregulation, a transdiagnostic construct that spans mental health diagnoses, were independently related to infant RSA trajectories during a social stressor, the still-face paradigm. Our sample included 104 mothers and their 7-month-old infants. Maternal emotion dysregulation was measured with the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale during the 3rd trimester of pregnancy and again at a 7-month postpartum laboratory visit. Infant RSA was recorded during the still-face paradigm. Only postnatal maternal emotion dysregulation was associated with infant RSA. Specifically, high postnatal emotion dysregulation was associated with a blunted (i.e., dampened reactivity and recovery) infant RSA response profile. Infant sex did not moderate the associations between maternal emotion dysregulation and infant RSA. Findings suggest that postnatal interventions to promote effective maternal emotion regulation may reduce risk for infants’ dysregulated psychophysiological stress responses.
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Part of the data (i.e., infant physiological measure) that supports the findings of the study will be available on the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Data Archive (https://nda.nih.gov/edit_collection.html?id=3240). Other parts of the data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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The code of all multilevel models is available on Open Science Framework (osf.io/j4ye2).
Change history
06 April 2022
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-022-00922-4
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all of the families who generously donated their time to participate in our study. We would also like to thank Mike Varner and Bob Silver for their support of the BABY study and for providing their dedicated OBGYN Research Network staff to help with screening and recruitment. We thank Connie Hammen for her assistance with training and scoring the UCLA Life Stress Interview. We would also like to thank the University of Utah Vice President’s Clinical Translational Research Scholars program for their mentorship and grantsmanship assistance. Last but not the least, we thank Celine Saenz and Sarah Terrell for their hard work on recruitment, coordination, and study management.
Funding
This study was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health R01MH119070 and R21MH109777 (to S.C. and E.C.) and grants from the University of Utah Consortium for Families and Health Research and Interdisciplinary Research Pilot Program.
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Gao, M.M., Kaliush, P.R., Brown, M.A. et al. Unique Contributions of Maternal Prenatal and Postnatal Emotion Dysregulation on Infant Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia. Res Child Adolesc Psychopathol 50, 1219–1232 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-022-00914-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-022-00914-4