Abstract
BackgroundThis study investigated whether postpartum anxiety disorder is associated to altered patterns of infant as well as maternal engagement in a Face-to-Face-Still-Face interaction (FFSF).Sampling and methodsn = 39 women with postpartum DSM-IV anxiety disorder and n = 48 healthy mothers were videotaped during a FFSF with their infant (M = 4.1 months).ResultsInfants of the clinical group showed significantly less positive engagement during the play episode than infants of controls. This result depended on infant sex: male controls demonstrated more positive interaction than males of anxious mothers. There was no such effect for female infants who engaged significantly less positively during the play episode than males and did not change their positive engagement during the FFSF. These findings imply pronounced interactive positivity and early vulnerability to maternal anxiety symptoms in male infants. Only the infants of the controls showed the still-face effect. They also protested significantly more during the still-face, while the clinical infants’ protest increased significantly during the reunion. Women of both groups did not differ in their interaction. Maternal intrusiveness was associated to infant protest in the course of the FFSF.ConclusionsResults suggest that mother-infant intervention should consider affect regulation and infant sex-specific characteristics in anxious mother-infant dyads.
Highlights
Mother-infant interaction has attracted a vast amount of research attention [1,2,3]
This study investigated whether postpartum anxiety disorder is associated to altered patterns of infant as well as maternal engagement in a Face-to-Face-Still-Face interaction (FFSF)
Infants of the clinical group showed significantly less positive engagement during the play episode than infants of controls. This result depended on infant sex: male controls demonstrated more positive interaction than males of anxious mothers. There was no such effect for female infants who engaged significantly less positively during the play episode than males and did not change their positive engagement during the FFSF
Summary
The early interaction between mother and infant is of incredible importance as it creates a stimulating social learning environment for the infant [4,5,6]. It promotes infant affect regulation while fostering the emotional mother-infant bond [7,8,9,10]. Postpartum depressive disorders have been linked to poorer infant cognitive performance and behavioural problems [29,30,31,32] as well as emotional self-regulation difficulties during mother-infant interaction (e.g. increased infant negative affect) [11,19,33,34]. These adverse developmental outcomes have been linked to lower interactive responsiveness, sensitivity and contingency in depressed mothers [35,36,37,38,39]. This study investigated whether postpartum anxiety disorder is associated to altered patterns of infant as well as maternal engagement in a Face-to-Face-Still-Face interaction (FFSF)
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