Maternal thoughts of harm in response to infant crying: an experimental analysis

Abstract

Ninety-eight mothers of healthy firstborn infants 0 to 6 months old were randomly assigned to listen to 10-min of infant crying or infant cooing while continuously rating subjective feelings of frustration. Participants completed pre-test measures of depressed mood, empathy, and trait anger and post-test measures of infant-related harm thoughts, negative and positive emotions, and urge to comfort and to flee. Twenty-three (23.5 %) participants endorsed unwanted thoughts of active harm (e.g., throwing, yelling at, shaking the infant). Women in the cry condition were more likely than women in the coo condition to report thoughts of harm. Women in the cry condition who endorsed thoughts of harm reported higher frustration levels over the 10 min of crying, higher levels of post-test negative emotions, and stronger urges to flee the infant but not stronger urges to comfort the infant. Trait anger and personal distress empathy predicted the occurrence of unwanted thoughts of infant harm, whereas negative mood did not. Unwanted, intrusive, infant-related thoughts of harm may be triggered by prolonged infant crying, are predicted by personal distress empathy and a tendency to experience anger, and are associated with higher frustration, negative emotions, and the urge to escape the infant.

Impact of infant crying on mothers with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder: A qualitative study

“…Consistent with research with healthy mothers and mothers with PTSD or depression, mothers with BPD also struggled with strong emotional responses of anxiety, distress, intense fear (i.e., perceiving that something was wrong with their child), frustration, agitation, and anger, particularly the longer infant crying persisted (Bosquet‐Enlow et al., ; Oldbury & Adams, ). Shame emanated from anger, prompting thoughts or urges to harm their child; however, similar findings have been found with healthy mothers (Fairbrother, Barr, Pauwels, Brant, & Green, ). Shame also was raised by mothers who perceived they were being judged by others when unable to stop their child from crying.…”

“To Suffer in Paradise”: Feelings Mothers Share on Portuguese Facebook Sites

“…Indeed, positive feelings on normative sites are almost exclusively focused on the children (love, affection, tenderness, pride), which is also consistent with the intensive motherhood model, requiring maternal love and considering it not only essential, but also natural (Badinter, 1986). Reification of maternal love agrees with literature that considers the mother’s attachment as mandatory (Cooke et al, 2016) as its absence entails risks for the child’s development (Yürümez et al, 2014; Fairbrother et al, 2015; Junttila et al, 2015; Riva Crugnola et al, 2016). The possibility and importance of other attachment figures besides the mother, or childrearing responsibility by the father, other family member, or the community, are never (or rarely) mentioned.…”

“…Mothers’ negative feelings and emotional disturbance have been documented from this perspective. Many of these scientific studies about mothers tend to focus on their negative psychological states and/or poor role performance, the respective causes, and predicting factors (Skipstein et al, 2012; O’Hara and McCabe, 2013; Taylor and Johnson, 2013; Tyrlik et al, 2013; Highet et al, 2014; Jover et al, 2014; Agrati et al, 2015; Razurel and Kaiser, 2015; Meier et al, 2016; Tikotzky, 2016; Kim et al, 2017), as well as the consequences it entails for the child’s behavior, development, and well-being (Herba et al, 2013; O’Hara and McCabe, 2013; Jover et al, 2014; Spijkers et al, 2014; Yürümez et al, 2014; Betts et al, 2015; Fairbrother et al, 2015; Junttila et al, 2015; Conners-Burrow et al, 2016; Riva Crugnola et al, 2016; Woolhouse et al, 2016; Granat et al, 2017; Moed et al, 2017). Specific groups, such as teenage mothers (Smith et al, 2017), mothers who experienced preterm labor (Karabekiroglu et al, 2015), or mothers of children who have been clinically diagnosed as disabled (Loukisas and Papoudi, 2016), also arouse scientific curiosity, and are viewed as an abnormal phenomenon, in comparison to normative mothers, assumed as control groups.…”

Individual variation in fathers’ testosterone reactivity to infant distress predicts parenting behaviors with their 1‐year‐old infants

“…Men’s T is lower when men feel empathetic when hearing recorded infant cries and engage in nurturing behavior with infant dolls, but men’s T increases in the absence of empathetic feelings and behavior (Fleming, Corter, Stallings, & Steiner, 2002; Storey, Walsh, Quinton, & Wynne-Edwards, 2000; van Anders, Tolman, & Volling, 2012). The absence of empathetic feelings and behavior in response to infant cries is highly problematic because lack of empathy leads to thoughts of infant abuse (Fairbrother, Barr, Pauwels, Brant, & Green, 2015). Because increases in T facilitate aggressive behaviors (Carré, McCormick, & Hariri, 2011), and are associated with decreased empathy (Fleming et al, 2002; Hermans, Putman, & van Honk, 2006), increased T in response to infant distress could, at best, interfere with sensitive parenting behavior and, at worst, lead to infant abuse.…”