Six‐week postpartum maternal depressive symptoms and 4‐month mother–infant self‐ and interactive contingency

Abstract

Associations of 6-week maternal depressive symptoms [Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D)] with 4-month mother-infant self-and interactive contingency patterns during face-to-face play were investigated in 132 dyads. Self-and interactive contingency (auto-and lagged cross-correlation, respectively) were assessed by multilevel time-series analysis. Infant and mother gaze, facial and vocal affect, touch, and spatial orientation behaviors were coded second-by-second from splitscreen videotape, and a multimodal measure of facial-visual "engagement" was constructed, generating nine modality pairings. With higher CES-D, the self-contingency of both partners was lowered in most modalities. With higher CES-D, interactive contingency values were both heightened (in some modalities) and lowered (in others), varying by partner. These results are consistent with an optimal midrange model. With higher CES-D, interactive contingency showed the following patterns: (a) Mothers and their infants had a reciprocal orientational sensitivity; (b) mothers and infants manifested a reciprocal intermodal discordance in attention versus affect coordination, lowering gaze coordination, but heightening affective coordination; (c) infants heightened, but mothers lowered, touch coordination with partner touch-an "infant approach-mother withdraw" touch pattern. Nonlinear analyses indicated that altered self-and interactive contingency were similar at both the low ("denial") as well as the high ("endorsement") poles of depressive symptoms, in half the findings. These complex, multimodal findings define different aspects of communication disturbance, with relevance for therapeutic intervention. RESUMEN: En un grupo de 132 díadas se investigaron las asociaciones entre los síntomas de depresión maternal a las 6 semanas (CES-D) y patrones de 4 meses de contingencia propia e interactiva entre la madre y el infante durante el juego cara a cara. Las contingencias propia e interactiva (propia y demorada correlación mutua, respectivamente) fueron evaluadas por medio de un análisis a varios niveles y en una serie de momentos temporales. La mirada del infante y la madre, el afecto facial y vocal, el acto de tocarse, y las conductas de orientación espacial fueron codificadas sección por sección, a partir de una videograbación con pantalla dividida, y una medida multimodal de contacto facial y visual fue construída, todo lo cual generó 9 pareamientos de modalidades. En los casos de más altos niveles de CES-D, la autocontingencia de cada una de las partes bajó en la mayoría de las modalidades. En los casos de más altos niveles de CES-D, los valores de contingencia interactiva subieron en ambas personas (en algunas modalidades) y bajaron (en otras), según cada individuo, consistente con un modelo intermedioóptimo. En los casos de niveles más altos de CES-D, la contingencia interactiva mostró los siguientes patrones: (1) las madres y sus infantes tenían una sensibilidad de orientación recíproca; (2) las madres y los infantes m...

Influence of Dyadic Matching of Affect on Infant Self-Regulation

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