Understanding emotion dysregulation from infancy to toddlerhood with a multilevel perspective: The buffering effect of maternal sensitivity.

Challenges with childhood emotion regulation may have origins in infancy and forecast later social and cognitive developmental delays, academic difficulties, and psychopathology. This study tested whether markers of emotion dysregulation in infancy predict emotion dysregulation in toddlerhood, and whether those associations depended on maternal sensitivity. When children ( = 111) were 7 months, baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), RSA withdrawal, and distress were collected during the Still Face Paradigm (SFP).

Unique Contributions of Maternal Prenatal and Postnatal Emotion Dysregulation on Infant Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia.

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.

Prenatal paternal stress predicts infant parasympathetic functioning above and beyond maternal prenatal stress.

Background: Paternal stress is often assessed by maternal report and is posited to influence infant development indirectly by contributing to a mother's stress and experiences during pregnancy. Far less is known about how direct effects of prenatal paternal stress, as described by fathers themselves, are related to an infant's physiological functioning. We assessed fathers' own experiences of stress and examined its direct impact on infant respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a biological index of self-regulation, at seven-month postpartum.

Maternal mindfulness during pregnancy predicts newborn neurobehavior.

Newborn neurobehavioral competencies portend a young child's abilities to modulate their arousal and attention in response to dynamic environmental cues. Although evidence suggests prenatal contributions to newborn neurobehavioral differences, no study to date has examined wellness-promoting traits, such as a pregnant woman's mindfulness, in this association. We examined whether a mother's mindfulness while pregnant related to neurobehavioral outcomes in her neonate, as well as whether maternal mindfulness moderated the link between prenatal maternal emotion dysregulation and newborn neurobehavior.

Prenatal maternal transdiagnostic, RDoC-informed predictors of newborn neurobehavior: Differences by sex.

We examined whether Research Domain Criteria (RDoC)-informed measures of prenatal stress predicted newborn neurobehavior and whether these effects differed by newborn sex. Multilevel, prenatal markers of prenatal stress were obtained from 162 pregnant women. Markers of the Negative Valence System included physiological functioning (respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA] and electrodermal [EDA] reactivity to a speech task, hair cortisol), self-reported stress (state anxiety, pregnancy-specific anxiety, daily stress, childhood trauma, economic hardship, and family resources), and interviewer-rated stress (episodic stress, chronic stress).

Intergenerational transmission of emotion dysregulation: Part II. Developmental origins of newborn neurobehavior.

We investigated whether neurobehavioral markers of risk for emotion dysregulation were evident among newborns, as well as whether the identified markers were associated with prenatal exposure to maternal emotion dysregulation. Pregnant women (N = 162) reported on their emotion dysregulation prior to a laboratory assessment. The women were then invited to the laboratory to assess baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and RSA in response to an infant cry.