Understanding the unfolding of stress regulation in infants

Abstract

Early identification of problems with psychosocial stress regulation is important for supporting mental and physical health. However, we currently lack knowledge about when reliable individual differences in stress-responsive physiology emerge and which aspects of maternal behavior determine the unfolding of infants’ stress responses. Knowledge of these processes is further limited by analytic approaches that do not account for multiple levels of within-and between-family effects. In a low-risk sample (n = 100 dyads), we observed infant cortisol and mother/infant behavior during regular play and stress sessions longitudinally from age 1 to 3, and used a three-level model to separately examine variability in infant cortisol trajectories within sessions, across years, and across infants. Stable individual differences in hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal axis regulation were observed in the first 3 years of life. Infants of less sensitive and more intrusive mothers manifested stress sensitization, that is, elevated cortisol levels during and following stress exposure, a profile related to behavioral distress. These findings have important practical implications, suggesting that children at risk for long-term stress dysregulation may be identified in the earliest years of life.

The endocrinology of human caregiving and its intergenerational transmission

“…A study by Jaffe et al 2015shows that children subjected to more severe, harsh parenting at the age of 3 have reduced CORT responses to the stressor after recent exposure to traumatic events at around 10 years old, which corroborates with other findings of reduced CORT responses after direct stress (e.g., Trickett, Gordis, Peckins, & Susman, 2014). However, in children who had not been subjected to harsh parenting, increased CORT responses were observed, similar to the increased CORT responses observed in children exposed to less sensitive and more intrusive parenting (Laurent et al, 2016). These findings might indicate altered sensitivity to CORT, due to adaptive up-or downregulation of the HPA axis, depending on the severity of experienced harsh caregiving.…”

Child maltreatment in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic: A proposed global framework on research, policy and practice

“…Prior studies illustrate that higher parental sensitivity to child cues may predict lower stress reactivity recovery among children ( Hibel, Granger, Blair, Cox, & Family Life Project Key Investigators, 2011 ; Laurent, Harold, Leve, Shelton, & Van Goozen, 2016 ). While unintentional, the circumstances and consequences of the pandemic and resultant lockdown rules may affect parental care.…”

Interaction between prenatal risk and infant parasympathetic and sympathetic stress reactivity predicts early aggression

“…Although these studies provide important insights into physiological measures of susceptibility, they have focused mostly on older children. Little is known about the role of the cardiac ANS in interaction with early adversity during infancy when the physiological systems involved in emotion regulation are emerging and presumably most responsive to environmental influences (Beauchaine, Neuhaus, Brenner, & Gatzke-Kopp, 2008;Laurent, Harold, Leve, Shelton, & Van Goozen, 2016).…”