The Validity of Prenatal Assessments of Mothers’ Emotional, Cognitive, and Physiological Reactions to Infant Cry

Abstract

SYNOPSIS Objective . The current study examines the stability, convergent validity, and predictive validity of assessing pregnant women’s emotional, cognitive, and physiological responses to infant cry. Design . In an ethnically diverse sample of 259 first-time mothers and their infants, during the prenatal period physiological arousal (skin conductance) and regulation (respiratory sinus arrythmia) were recorded as mothers were exposed to four 1-min videos of crying infants. After each clip, mothers completed questionnaires and were interviewed about their cognitive (attributions, ability to detect distress, efficacy) and emotional responses (empathy, negative emotions). When infants were 6 months old, mothers’ physiological arousal and regulation were assessed while interacting with their own infants during distress-eliciting tasks, then mothers were interviewed about their emotional and cognitive responses using a video-recall method. A subset of mothers (n = 103) was re-administered the prenatal interview using the standard cry videos. Maternal sensitivity was observed during distress-eliciting tasks when infants were 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years old. Results . Mothers’ prenatal responses to cry videos were moderately stable until 6 months postpartum, converged with postnatal measures from own infant stimuli, and illustrated modest predictive validity to maternal sensitivity during the first 2 years that was comparable to predictive validity from mothers’ postpartum responses to their own infants. Conclusions . How mothers respond to cry stimuli during the prenatal period is reflective of later responses toward their own infants, and as such prenatal cry stimuli are a useful tool for parenting researchers.