ArticleInfancy : the official journal of the International Society on Infant Studies
Caregiver Holding, Not Vocalizing, Supports Real-Time Vagal Regulation.
Article in Infancy : the official journal of the International Society on Infant Studies. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Variation in Everyday Maternal Sensitivity Predicts Infants' Real-Time Physiological Regulation.Developmental psychobiology · 2026Article
- Everyday maternal sensitivity to distress is dynamic and systematically varies across contexts.Child development · 2026Article
- Caregiver Holding, Not Vocalizing, Supports Real-Time Vagal Regulation.Infancy : the official journal of the International Society on Infant StudiesArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Caregivers play a critical role in infant physiological regulation. Lab-based studies show that more responsive mothers have infants that are better regulators, indexed by a decrease in infant respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) during standardized stressors. However, little is known about the specific caregiving behaviors that lead to physiological regulation. This study leverages wearable sensors and ecologically valid observations of mother and infant behavior to identify how spontaneous caregiving behaviors influence real-time mother and infant parasympathetic regulation following infant distress. N = 41 mother-infant dyads (mean age 4.6 months) were recruited from an urban North American city. Infants and mothers wore ECG monitors while being video recorded participating in daily routines around their home for 1 hour. Trained RAs annotated infant crying and mothers' regulation behaviors, including holding and speaking to their infant. Contrary to laboratory findings, mothers did not respond immediately to their infant's crying in ecologically valid home interactions, with most response latencies around 10 s and some up to 2-3 min. Additionally, not all caregiving behaviors had effects on real-time physiological regulation. Mothers holding their infant, but not vocalizing, produced significant time-locked decreases in real-time mother and infant RSA, corresponding to regulation. Physical touch, but not vocalizations, may scaffold mother and infant physiological regulation in the context of unprompted infant distress. Specific caregiving behaviors actively shape in-the-moment physiological arousal and regulation "in the wild."
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Registered trials
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