Depression in mothers is consistently associated with reduced caregiving sensitivity and greater infant negative affect expression. The current article examined the real-time behavioral mechanisms underlying these associations using Granger causality time series analyses in a sample of mothers (N = 194; 86.60% White) at elevated risk for…

Pamela High, MS, MD, co-director of the Infant Behavior, Cry and Sleep Clinic at the Brown Center for the Study of Children at Risk, discusses the phenomena of infant crying and the impact it has on families. In most cases, infant crying will peak and resolve in the early months, but infant irritability can increase the risk of maternal…

Objective: To examine the underlying mechanisms of adults' intended caregiving responses to cry sounds in a behavioral genetic design and to investigate the role of cry pitch and perceived urgency in sensitive and harsh caregiving responses. Methods: The sample consisted of 184 adult twin pairs (18-69 years), including males and females, parents…

This study of healthy 39-week-old infants, so-called term infants, and chronically stressed 42-week-old infants, so-called postmature infants, showed that sucrose was extremely effective in calming term infants but less effective in calming postmature infants. Results supported the hypothesis that sucrose engages an opioid system in infants. (BG)

The potency of different sugars as calming agents in human infants was investigated in 2 experiments with 40 infants. Sucrose and fructose were equally effective calming agents, whereas glucose was less effective. Results indicate that the calming effects of milk lie in components other than its sugar. (LB)

Infant crying signals distress to potential caretakers who can alleviate the aversive conditions that gave rise to the cry. The cry signal results from coordination among several brain regions that control respiration and vocal cord vibration from which the cry sounds are produced. Previous work has shown a relationship between acoustic…