Infant carrying as a tool to promote secure attachments in young mothers: Comparing intervention and control infants during the still-face paradigm

Williams, Lela Rankin; Turner, Patricia R.

doi:10.1016/j.infbeh.2019.101413

Cited by 39 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“… Williams and Turner (2020) randomly assigned at-risk adolescent mothers to babywearing or control conditions. They found that at seven months, using the Global Rating Scale, infants in the babywearing group were more likely to have secure attachments and less likely to have disorganized attachments.…”

Section: Infant Holding or Carryingmentioning

confidence: 99%

To have and to hold: Effects of physical contact on infants and their caregivers

Bigelow

Williams

2020

Infant Behavior and Development

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Section: Infant Holding or Carryingmentioning

confidence: 99%

To have and to hold: Effects of physical contact on infants and their caregivers

Bigelow

Williams

2020

Infant Behavior and Development

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“…We begin our analysis with examining parallels of extended bouts of rodent skin-to-skin contact to large parts of the pups’ body ( Kojima et al, 2012 ) with the specific somatosensory stimulation associated with EPIC. As briefly described in section “Introduction,” EPIC covers a range of relatively similar practices, which all have in common that the infant is placed ventrally toward the caregiver for prolonged periods, usually lasting significantly longer than 1 min per bout of carrying ( Anisfeld et al, 1990 ; Pisacane et al, 2012 ; Williams and Turner, 2020 ). Such ventral–ventral contact exerts a static pressure and is likely to activate specific C-fibers, which innervate the breasts and the chest and which are connected to the vagal nuclei, which are possibly in functional contact with cells producing OT in the hypothalamus ( Eriksson et al, 1996 ; Nelson et al, 1998 ).…”

Section: Extended Parent–infant Physical Contactmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One potential candidate for such primary intervention involves the practice of clinically recommended and supported extended parent–infant physical contact in the first months (EPIC), following birth at term ( Norholt, 2020 ). Such extended parent–infant physical contact can be obtained through skin-to-skin ventral–ventral contact ( Bystrova et al, 2003 , 2009 ; Bigelow and Power, 2012 ) or through infant carrying with both caregiver and infant clothed, whether ventral–ventral (colloquially known in Western cultures as “babywearing”) ( Williams and Turner, 2020 ), lateral–ventral (“hip-carrying”), or dorsal–ventral (“back-carrying”) ( Graham et al, 2015 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Delivering Clinically on Our Knowledge of Oxytocin and Sensory Stimulation: The Potential of Infant Carrying in Primary Prevention

Norholt¹

2021

Front. Psychol.

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Oxytocin (OT) is one of the most intensively researched neuropeptides during the three past decades. In benign social contexts, OT exerts a range of desirable socioemotional, stress-reducing, and immunoregulatory effects in mammals and humans and influences mammalian parenting. Consequentially, research in potential pharmacological applications of OT toward human social deficits/disorders and physical illness has increased substantially. Regrettably, the results from the administration of exogenous OT are still relatively inconclusive. Research in rodent maternal developmental programming has demonstrated the susceptibility of offspring endogenous OT systems to maternal somatosensory stimulation, with consequences for behavioral, epigenetic, cognitive, and neurological outcomes. A translation of this animal research into practically feasible human parenting recommendations has yet to happen, despite the significant prevention potential implied by the maternal developmental programming research. Extended physical contact with full-term healthy infants in the months following birth (infant carrying) might constitute the human equivalent of those specific rodent maternal behaviors, found to positively influence emerging OT systems. Findings from both OT and maternal programming research parallel those found for infants exposed to such extended parental physical contact, whether through skin-to-skin contact or infant carrying. Clinical support of parents to engage in extended physical contact represents a feasible intervention to create optimum conditions for the development of infant OT systems, with potential beneficial long-term health effects.

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“…Maternal touch during exposure to a stressful event is associated with a more regulated physiological stress response (Feldman, Singer, & Zagoory, 2010) and with more positive self-regulating behaviors (Jean & Stack, 2012). Intervention research even suggests a positive causal impact of caregiver touch on infant cognitive and motor development (Feldman, Eidelman, Sirota, & Weller, 2002), as well as promoting a healthy bond between caregivers and infants (Feldman, Weller, Sirota, & Eidelman, 2003;Williams & Turner, 2020). Much of this work focuses on maternal touch, however fathers have been observed to engage in similar types and patterns of touch with their infants (Feldman et al, 2003).…”

Section: Caregiver Proximitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring naturalistic proximity as a window into caregiver–child interaction patterns

Salo¹,

Pannuto²,

Hedgecock³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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The types of interactions that we believe to be most supportive of positive child development (e.g., joint attention, physical touch) take place in moments of close contact with others, and in the earliest years of life a child’s caregivers are the primary partners in these important interactions. However, we know little about the patterns of real-life interactions between children and their caregivers. To address this gap, we have developed a wearable, infrastructure-free device (TotTag) used to dynamically and unobtrusively measure real-time physical proximity between children and caregivers throughout the day. The present study examines the TotTag validity and reliability with data collected over two days from a family of four (30-month-old son, 61-month-old daughter, 37-year-old father, 37-year-old mother), including information about their patterns of interaction as well as how the children’s experiences might differ depending on proximity to their caregivers. We explored patterns of proximity across the day within each parent–child dyad and whether measurements corresponding to close proximity between child and caregiver would indicate periods in which increased opportunity for developmentally critical interactions occur. Each child also wore a widely-used wearable audio recording device (LENA) to collect time-synced linguistic input. Descriptive analysis of the TotTag data reveal wide variability in caregiver–child proximity over the course of the recordings. Further, results suggest that the amount of time spent in close proximity with a caregiver is associated with the quantity of a child’s exposure to adult language, suggesting that variations in proximity are linked to, though not synonymous with, the experience of adult speech. Potential implications for deepening understanding of early caregiver–child interactions are discussed.

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Infant carrying as a tool to promote secure attachments in young mothers: Comparing intervention and control infants during the still-face paradigm

Cited by 39 publications

References 68 publications

To have and to hold: Effects of physical contact on infants and their caregivers

To have and to hold: Effects of physical contact on infants and their caregivers

Delivering Clinically on Our Knowledge of Oxytocin and Sensory Stimulation: The Potential of Infant Carrying in Primary Prevention

Measuring naturalistic proximity as a window into caregiver–child interaction patterns

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