Early life attachment in term and preterm infants

Author:

Jiménez-Sánchez LorenaORCID,Ginnell LornaORCID,O’Carroll Sinéad,Ledsham Victoria,Corrigan Amy,Chua Yu WeiORCID,Stoye David Q.ORCID,Sullivan GemmaORCID,Hall Jill,Clemens Ann M.ORCID,Boardman James P.ORCID,Fletcher-Watson SueORCID

Abstract

1AbstractBackgroundPreterm birth is associated with atypical cognitive and socioemotional outcomes in childhood. Secure infant attachment protects against adverse outcomes, but could be modified by alterations in the early caregiving environment inherent to essential neonatal intensive care or co-morbidities of preterm birth. We aimed to test the hypothesis that preterm birth is associated with differences in infant attachment, and to investigate clinical, neurodevelopmental and socioeconomic variables that are associated with infant attachment.Methods82 preterm and 75 term infants with mean (range) gestational age at birth 29.5 (22.1 – 32.9) and 39.6 (36.4 – 42.1) weeks, respectively, completed the Still-Face Paradigm (SFP) at nine months of corrected age. Attachment dimensions and categories were obtained from infant responses to the SFP during the reunion episode using a published coding scheme, and an alternative principal component (PC) and clustering strategy. Neurodevelopment was assessed using the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, and socioeconomic status was operationalized as neighborhood deprivation.ResultsPreterm and term infants significantly differed in fretfulness, attentional PC scores and in their distribution between attachment clusters (p-values ≤ 0.3); with preterm infants exhibiting less fretful and more neutral responses to the SFP. Preterm and term infants did not significantly differ in distress, attentiveness to caregivers, emotional PC scores, or in their distribution between attachment styles (p-values ≥ .13). In the whole sample, fretfulness correlated with socioeconomic deprivation (rs= −0.18, p-value = .02).ConclusionsData reveal subtle attachment differences between preterm and term infants at nine months of age, which may not always be captured by traditional approaches for categorizing attachment. Findings suggests that caregiver-infant attachment relationships may not be fully resilient to the effects of prematurity on the developing infant, but this depends on how attachment is measured. Our results highlight putative links between socioeconomic deprivation and infant attachment that warrant further study.

Publisher

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Reference54 articles.

1. Abbott, K. (2016). Attachment during the first year of life: Validity and longitudinal associations to 14 months, of attachment classification at 7 months: The University of Liverpool (United Kingdom).

2. Individual differences in the development of some attachment behaviors;Merrill-Palmer Quarterly of Behavior and Development,1972

3. When to use the Bonferroni correction

4. Language Abilities in Children Who Were Very Preterm and/or Very Low Birth Weight: A Meta-Analysis

5. Mortality, In-Hospital Morbidity, Care Practices, and 2-Year Outcomes for Extremely Preterm Infants in the US, 2013-2018

Cited by 1 articles. 订阅此论文施引文献 订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3