SECTION 2. RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES Mothers’ Sensitivity to Infant Signals

Of all of the infant’s signals, the cry is particularly influential in the developing pattern of mother–infant interaction. If a mother terminates crying successfully, she may gain confidence; if unsuccessful, she may begin to focus on her perceived ineffectiveness. Pediatricians and nurses who work with mothers of young infants need to carefully evaluate what mothers “think” about their successes and failures in managing daily child care. Helping mothers “reframe” perceptions of their infant may be a simple but powerful intervention to optimize their interactions. Pediatrics 1998;102:1247– 1249. Of all the signals that infants emit, the cry is particularly influential in the developing pattern of mother–infant interaction. The infant cry as a signal of distress presents one of the first challenges faced by parents. If successful at terminating crying, a mother may gain confidence in her own parenting skills; if unsuccessful, the mother may begin to focus on her own perceived ineffectiveness. Mothers’ perceptions of an infant, as well as their style of coping with the infant, are in part based on experiences and expectations developed before the infant’s birth.1 During the early weeks and months of mother–infant interaction, mothers perceive their own infant’s signals filtered by expectations and models of infant behavior constructed from experience.1–6 My laboratory has been engaged in the development of experimental techniques to evaluate mothers’ responsiveness to infant signals and how this responsiveness is related to mothers’ cognitive sets and experiences. In this report, I review some of our findings that demonstrate the importance of mothers’ experiences and perceptions in determining their responsiveness to their infant. Our findings suggest that pediatricians and nurses who work with mothers of young infants need to evaluate carefully what mothers think about the infant and their successes and failures in managing daily child care. Helping mothers reframe perceptions of their infant may be a simple but powerful intervention to optimize their interactions. PARENTAL PERCEPTIONS AND EXPECTATIONS The first study under discussion involved mothers and fathers watching a videotaped presentation of an infant in both a smiling and a crying state.7 The same infant was described in a paragraph as a typical (normal), difficult, or premature infant. The same cry, when labeled as coming from a difficult or premature infant, was more aversive to fathers and mothers than when it was labeled as a cry from a typical infant. This result demonstrates the importance of parental perceptions and expectations in determining processing of infant signals. It emphasizes the importance of framing or labeling the experience of interacting with an infant on responses for that infant. In another study of mothers watching videotapes of crying and smiling infants, we asked mothers to rate their own infant’s temperament.1 Mothers who rated their infants as “easy” in temperament were more responsive physiologically to a change in infant signal (measured by heart rate) than were mothers who rated their infant as difficult. This finding demonstrates that a mother’s perception of her infant is associated with physiologic responses to infant signals. The next step, of course, was to examine what this implied. In a longitudinal study,1 we measured mothers’ heart rate responses to videotaped infants in the laboratory when the infants were 4 months old. We then observed the same mothers feeding their infants when the infants were 9 months old and, at 15 months, assessed the infants on a cognitive measure. We found that mothers who were more responsive physiologically to infant signals were more sensitive behaviorally to their infants during feeding. Moreover, these infants paired with more behaviorally sensitive mothers had more mature scores on a cognitive task (object concept on the Uzgiris and Hunter Scale). With this study, we found a link between our laboratory assessment of mothers’ responsiveness and an actual behavioral assessment of mother–infant interaction. We also have a link between physiologic response, behavioral response, and infant development. THE ROLE OF EXPERIENCE Another aspect of mothers’ experiences with an infant’s cry is the role of her experience in child care success in shaping infant interaction. When mothers interact with their infant, they develop experiences of success as well as of failure in managing the Received for publication Aug 2, 1998; accepted Sep 29, 1998. Address correspondence to John G. Warhol, PhD, The Warhol Institute, 225 First Ave, Atlantic Highlands, NJ 07716. PEDIATRICS (ISSN 0031 4005). Copyright © 1998 by the American Acad-