Family nurture intervention for preterm infants facilitates positive mother–infant face-to-face engagement at 4 months.

Abstract

Although preterm infants are at risk for social deficits, interventions to improve mother-infant interaction in the NICU are not part of standard care (SC). Study participants were a subset from a randomized controlled trial of a new intervention for premature infants, Family Nurture Intervention (FNI), designed to help mothers and infants establish an emotional connection. At 4 months corrected age, mother-infant face-to-face interaction was filmed and coded on a 1-second time base for mother touch, infant vocal affect, mother gaze and infant gaze. Time-series models assessed self- and interactive contingency. Comparing FNI to SC dyads, FNI mothers showed more touch and calmer touch patterns, and FNI infants showed more angry-protest but less cry. In maternal touch self-contingency, FNI mothers were more likely to sustain positive touch, and to repair moments of negative touch by transitioning to positive touch. In maternal touch interactive contingency, when infants looked at mothers, FNI mothers were likely to respond with more positive touch. In infant vocal affect self-contingency, FNI infants were more likely to sustain positive vocal affect, and to transition from negative to positive vocal affect. In maternal gaze interactive contingency, following infant looking at mother, FNI mothers of male infants were more likely to look at their sons. In maternal gaze self-contingency, following mother looking away, FNI mothers of male infants were more likely to look at their sons. Documentation of positive effects of FNI for 4-month mother-infant face-to-face communication is useful clinically and has important implications for an improved developmental trajectory of these infants.

Interactive behaviors between mothers and their prematurely born infants in the face-to-face Still-Face Paradigm

“…Correlations between maternal and infant interactive behaviors have been observed, and in some cases, such as the presence of intrusive behaviors and the relationship with noninteractive or interacting negative behaviors suggest that interventions with mothers could improve the relationship between the dyad, making mothers more sensitive to their infant's needs. Consequently, preventive approaches and humanized attention to the newborn, such as the Kangaroo Mother Method, interventions performed during the hospitalization of the infant and that accompany the transition from hospital to home can help support the infant's self-regulation from birth, favor the relationship between mother and child, and also act as facilitators of positive interaction routes (Beebe et al, 2018;Nayak et al, 2019;Vonderheid et al, 2016). The results obtained by the study are associated with a body of knowledge that contributes to the practices supported by empirical evidence with families of preterm infants, in order to benefit the mother-infant relationship and the infant's developmental processes.…”

Maternal and family factors differentiate profiles of psychiatric impairments in very preterm children at age 5‐years

“…The lack of findings with regards to infant clinical factors optimistically suggests that proximal socio‐environmental influences are critical for promoting resilient outcomes among VPT infants. Early interventions that target maternal psychopathology, parenting stress, and parent‐child interactions have been shown to be successful in improving maternal and infant outcomes (Beebe et al., ). Our findings emphasize the need to monitor and support longer‐term maternal and family functioning alongside the provision of individualized strategies to improve the developmental outcomes of heterogeneous groups of VPT children.…”

Urgent engagement in 9/11 pregnant widows and their infants: Transmission of trauma

“…Consistent with our previous studies, we used a weighted-lag approach (Beebe et al, 2010(Beebe et al, , 2016(Beebe et al, , 2018. Using a moving 4-s window, the prior 3 s, lags 1, 2, and 3 (L1, L2, and L3), were used to predict t 0 , the current second.…”