In most of our social life we communicate and relate to others. Successful interpersonal relating is crucial to physical and mental well-being and growth. This study, using the still-face paradigm, demonstrates that even human neonates (n = 90, 3-96 hr after birth) adjust their behavior according to the social responsiveness of their interaction…

Studied hand-mouth coordination in 40 infants of 1-3 days. Sucrose solution was delivered intraorally every 2 minutes. Results provide evidence for sucrose as a calming agent and for a coordinative behavorial system that integrates hand-mouth activity in supine human infants. (RJC)

Determines the time course of circulating cortisol following circumcision in 80 healthy newborns and investigates whether changes in behavioral state following circumcision in anyway paralleled the adrenocortical time course. Adrenocortical and behavioral data indicated that subjects were able to cope with circumcision trauma. Cortisol levels…

Seven mother/newborn pairs, selected for neurological and obstetric optimality of the babies, were observed during two breastfeedings in order to gain insight into the temporal organization of early interaction between healthy babies and their mothers. (MP)

Links between neonatal biological rhythms and the emergence of interaction rhythms were examined in 3 groups (N=71): high-risk preterms (HR; birth weight less than 1,000 g), low-risk preterms (LR; birth weight=1,700-1,850 g), and full-term (FT) infants. Once a week for premature infants and on the 2nd day for FT infants, sleep-wake cyclicity was…

Ability of 26 newborns to imitate facial expressions was examined. When infants observed emotional facial expressions, they did not show imitative matching of the modeled expressions. However, when tongue protrusion was modeled, infants did produce the modeled gesture. (PCB)

Response patterns of 24 female nurses to 2-day-old neonates who had been arbitrarily labeled male or female were studied. A total of 17 reliable behaviors of nurses were scored from videotapes of nurse-infant interaction. Nurses responded differentially to neonates based on true gender rather than ascribed gender. Nurses held boys more by their…

Observed father's behaviors toward newborns. Found fathers who had been present during delivery exhibited more distal attachment-type behaviors. Proximal father behavior (touching) did not differ according to father presence at delivery. Attendance at prenatal classes was not related to either father behaviors observed. (Author)

This study compared the interactive behavior of 20 cocaine-using mothers and their neonates with a control group of drug-free mothers and newborns. Cocaine-exposed infants were asleep or distressed for significantly longer periods, and cocaine-using mothers spent significantly more time disengaged from, and passively looking at, infants than did…

Findings of a study of 32 infants attending a neonatal intensive care unit follow-up clinic included mechanically ventilated infants were more irritable than nonventilated infants; infants from lower income families were fussier than infants from higher income families; 5-minute Apgar scores were more predictive of infants' success on a visual…

Determined whether individual neonate characteristics could be detected and reliably measured in preterm infants. Results showed that preterms were highly self-consistent in their reactions to stimuli from neurobehavioral assessments. Highly reliable individual differences among infants were also seen. Individual consistencies and differences in…

In this study, 104 primarily indigent primiparous mothers from urban and rural areas and their healthy, full-term neonates were placed in one of four conditions during the normal postpartum lying-in period. Conditions were control, initial contact, rooming-in, and initial contact plus rooming-in. Dependent variables consisted of scores on the…

Research on the effectiveness of the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS) in enhancing the mother-newborn relationship has had inconsistent results. A study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of an NBAS intervention with a high-risk mother group. The study focused on low-income, drug-using mothers, measuring the effectiveness of the…