OBJECTIVE This study examined the prevalence and correlates of Adult Separation Anxiety Disorder (ASAD) and Adult Separation Anxiety (ASA) symptoms in a sample of first-time mothers with an unsettled infant during the first postpartum year. METHODS Eighty-three primiparous women admitted to a residential parent-infant program participated in a structured clinical interview for DSM-IV diagnosi...

The role of opioid receptors in infant-mother attachment has been well established. Morphine, a preferential μ opioid receptor (MOR) agonist, attenuates separation distress vocalizations and decreases physical contact between infant and mother. However, there is little research on how opioid receptors are involved in adult attachment. The present study used the monogamous titi monkey (Callicebu...

Using data from the Durham Child Health and Development Study (n=148), the current study examines the associations between child and parenting variables at 6 months and child attachment quality at 12 months of age and maternal report of child self regulation at 24 months of age. Child and parent variables predicted distinct forms of insecure attachment relationships. Observations of infant soot...

BACKGROUND This study examined predictors of parenting self-efficacy (PSE) in a sample of first-time mothers during the first year after childbirth and evaluated the effect of a brief, intensive, mother-infant residential intervention on PSE and infant behaviour. METHODS 83 primiparous women with infants aged 0-12 months admitted to a residential parent-infant program participated in a struct...

Early motherhood is considered a risk factor for an adequate relationship between mother and infant and for the subsequent development of the infant. The principal aim of the study is to analyze micro-analytically the effect of motherhood in adolescence on the quality of mother-infant interaction and emotion regulation at three months, considering at the same time the effect of maternal attachm...

BACKGROUND It is clear that early social interaction follows from mother-infant interaction after pregnancy. Many researchers have illuminated this interaction in the first years of life. Most common mother-infant interaction is the attachment behavior of an infant. The Japan Children's Study (JCS) development psychology group hypothesis is that the early mother-infant interaction will predict ...

We explored the relationship between vocal expressiveness in song and maternal attachment representation. Mothers (N = 36), classified as Autonomous, Dismissing, or Preoccupied, sang a play song of their choice in their 6-month-old infants’ presence and absence. Raters (N = 50) who were naı̈ve to maternal attachment classifications listened to excerpts of each song rendition and rated mothers’ e...

The attachment and the caregiving system are complementary systems which are active simultaneously in infant and mother interactions. This ensures the infant survival and optimal social, emotional, and cognitive development. In this brief review we first define the characteristics of these two behavioral systems and the theory that links them, according to what Bowlby called the "attachment-car...

The associations between attachment representations of adopted young adults and their experiential and physiological arousal to infant crying were examined. Attachment representations were assessed with the Attachment Script Assessment (ASA), and the young adults listened to infant cries, during which ratings of cry perception were collected and physiological reactivity was measured. Secure ado...

Is early preventive intervention effective in enhancing parental sensitivity and infant attachment security, and if so, what type of intervention is most successful? Seventy studies were traced, producing 88 intervention effects on sensitivity (n = 7,636) and/or attachment (n = 1,503). Randomized interventions appeared rather effective in changing insensitive parenting (d = 0.33) and infant att...