Research suggested that maternal anxiety disorders might be related to infants' behavioral inhibition. This study investigated whether maternal postpartum anxiety disorder is associated with infant temperament, more precisely, infant distress to novelty, an early predictor of behavioral inhibition. Differences in the latter were analyzed in a German sample by comparing n = 38 healthy mother-inf...

Background Mother-infant interaction provides important training for the infant's ability to cope with stress and the development of resilience. Prenatal stress (PS) and its impact on the offspring's development have long been a focus of stress research, with studies highlighting both harmful and beneficial effects. The aim of the current study was to examine the possible influence of both psyc...

We investigated conceptual overlap between literature demonstrating links between adult facial width-to-height ratio (FWHR) and behavior and that demonstrating links between infant FWHR and temperament by investigating whether babyfaceness is associated with FWHR and behavior at both ages. Babyfaceness was positively correlated with FWHR in both infants and adults. Babyfaceness also was correla...

BACKGROUND Prenatal cocaine exposure is a marker of developmental risk. Social environmental risk factors may include maternal stress and maternal perceptions of difficult infant temperament. OBJECTIVES To examine factors that may predict or moderate maternal ratings of parenting stress and difficult temperament in cocaine-exposed (CE) infants. METHOD Neonatal behavior, infant temperament, ...

Forced-choice preferential looking (FPL) and operant preferential looking (OPL) procedures for testing infant acuity typically require 15-45 min to derive an acuity estimate. This article presents a new acuity assessment technique ("acuity cards") that combines FPL/OPL stimuli with an observer's subjective assessment of an infant's looking behavior. The infant is shown a series of gray cards th...

Crying is the most salient vocal signal of distress. The cries of a newborn infant alert adult listeners and often elicit caregiving behavior. For the parent, rapid responding to an infant in distress is an adaptive behavior, functioning to ensure offspring survival. The ability to react rapidly requires quick recognition and evaluation of stimuli followed by a co-ordinated motor response. Prev...

BACKGROUND Infant temperament predicts a range of developmental and behavioral outcomes throughout childhood. Both maternal fatty acid intake and psychosocial stress exposures during pregnancy may influence infant temperament. Furthermore, maternal race may modify prenatal diet and stress effects. The goals of this study are to examine the joint effects of prenatal diet and stress and the modif...